
Class / /^ 7— 
C(5PgttS°_ 

COFlfRIGHT DEPOSir. 



^ ^ 



Fortune's Wheel 



BY 

MARTHA GRAY 



'^Memory, a pensive Ruth, went gleaning in 
the fields of childhood" 



THE 

Hbbey press 

PUBLISHERS 

114 

FBFTH AVENUE 

LONDON NEW YORK MONTREAL 



\- 



Two Ccit-n£8 RtCEIvED 

DEC, 13 1901 

O0Pv»itOMT ENTRY 

CLASS a KXc NO. 

6op^, a. I 



^t^\ 



Copyright, igoi, 

by 

THE 

Bbbcs Prc66 



• '• • • 



• • • I • 



TO SARA CHASE, 

WHO FIRST ENCOURAGED ME TO WRITE, 

AND TO MY HUSBAND WHO HAS BEEN A HELP TO ME 

IN MY STUDIES, THIS LITTLE VOLUME 

IS DUTIFULLY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



/ 



Contents 

CHAP. ^^G= 

I. The Beautiful River i 

II. Joys of Childhood 12 

III. My Great-Grandmother 22 

IV. Father's People 32 

V. My Brother Seth 47 

VI. My Places of Residence 60 

VII. Uncle William 73 

'"'VlII. Churches ^^ 

-IX. Sketch of The Neighbors 97 

-" X. Different Individuals 112 

-XL Schools 125 

XII. Days Spent with Mother I39 

XIII. Excursions ^50 

XIV. Memories of The Old House 158 

XV. Spook Lore and The Haunted House 169 

XVI. During The Great Rebellion 180 

XVII. Our Journey South 192 

XVIII. Something of Our Life There 203 

vii 



viii Contents 

CHAP. PAGE 

XIX. The People 215 

XX. Further Experiences ' 228 

XXI. Our Trial 239 

XXII. Back to the Old Home 254 

XXIII. Closing Scenes 265 



FORTUNE'S WHEEL 

CHAPTER I 

THE BEAUTIFUL RIVER 

Dear Reader. — Whoever you may be — I am writ- 
ing this reminiscence of my childhood so you can see 
something of how Hfe was before and during " the 
Great RebelHon," in the Httle village where my child- 
hood was passed in that long ago. 

My life began nearly a half century ago in the state 
of New York, in a village on the beautiful St. Lawrence 
river, a stream no one can appreciate by written de- 
scriptions. To understand its beauty fully, one must 
be carried along on its bosom, through its rapids, 
among its islands, into its smooth water, thence on- 
ward until the great ocean is reached. 

Between Lake Ontario and Ogdensburgh are the 
Thousand Islands, one of the most beautiful places 
in all the world. 

Little green islands rise out of the water and lift 
their heads toward the blue sky, as though trying to 
ask the " Great World " to stop for a while and tell 
them the mystery of the onward rushing waters, and 
why they are there, hundreds and hundreds of them. 



2 Fortune's Wheel 

But the " Great World " passes on, drinking in the 
loveliness of the beautiful islands, and never once 
stopping, to whisper, to them, that ages and ages ago, 
oh, ever so many that no one knows how long it was, 
the continent of North America was not a bit as it is 
now, and the waters rested in other places or rushed 
and babbled over other river beds. 

Then there came a change; and nature wore such 
a strange garb her old friends would never have known 
her. Many other changes came ; but we do not know 
how or when, the change was so mysterious, and the 
time so long ago. 

Geology teaches many things, but the mystery of 
our world is locked so securely in the bosom of old 
mother nature, that we shall never know it all. 

If you look on the map you will find that the Great 
Lakes form .a terrace, and that that grand cataract, 
Niagara Falls, is between two of them, and that the 
St. Lawrence river is the outlet of them all. 

Well, away back ages and ages ago the water grew 
tired of being imprisoned on the high terrace and 
longed to return to the ocean, the home of all the 
waters; and it broke away from all restraint and 
rushed over the land anywhere and everywhere, in 
its mad race onward, digging out a channel for itself 
and where the rocks were too hard to be much affected 
by the onward rushing waters they were left ; and the 
river dug deep its channel right by their side ; and in 
time the rocks were covered with soil and verdure, and 
there were so many, they were called The Thousand 
Islands. 



The Beautiful River 3 

I wish I could describe them ; but who was ever able 
to describe the most beautiful things in nature? No 
one, so I will not try to describe them; but will only 
tell a few things about those beautiful, wonderful 
islands lying like emeralds and moss agates on the 
bosom of the mighty river. 

Some rise right up out of the water and form a 
cone, others are flat and lie low as though nestling for 
rest and shelter in the embrace of the onward rushing 
waters ; some are covered with trees ; others are only 
velvety and green ; and on some are pretty dwelling- 
houses. 

The Canadian shore has abrupt banks and one 
could see lovely homes peeping out from a wilderness 
of trees and shrubs, and, in some places there were 
steps leading down to the water, and a little wharf with 
a tiny skiff • moored thereby, all suggested a life of 
peace, pleasure and plenty. The American side looked 
so far away as seen from the steamer and the dark 
waters rushing along ; all form a picture in my memory 
never to be forgotten. 

I am telling how it all looked to me years and years 
ago. 

I know that many changes have come and on ac- 
count of the extreme loveliness of the place there is a 
famous summer resort there now, and other child 
eyes are looking at a different dress which nature has 
been compelled to wear ; for all over our broad domain, 
people are pressing onward, building up cities and 
resorts and places for rest and recreation, and in a 
few short years places are so changed, that in going 



4 Fortune's Wheel 

back to them we do not find the same place we left 
and there is something in our hearts that is akin to 
pain. 

Between Ogdensburgh and the ocean are the rapids : 
three in number. In journeying down stream, the 
Lachine comes first. Here the waters rush along so 
swiftly that no steamer could ascend the river through 
them. But it is a pleasure never to be forgotten, to go 
down through them on a steamer, or small sailing 
craft, or better still, in a row boat; only one must 
have an experienced boatman to manage the boat. 

I will describe the — " Rapid De Plaw " — a' localism 
— for I Hved by it for years and knew it well. The 
river was very wide at this point and unequally di- 
vided-^-by an island three miles long — into what were 
called the Little and Big rivers : the smaller one being 
on the American side. My father has told me that 
years before the smaller one was swifter in its race 
toward the ocean than the big one. But that was 
before my time and as I knew it it was a very placid 
stream. 

When steamboats were invented and set afloat on 
our streams, they found one river that resisted their 
encroachments, and as they tried to steam up the 
rapids, the river seemed possessed with a very demon 
of fury and the boats were obliged to drop down 
stream. I remember a song my father used to sing 
of a boat whose boiler was blown up while trying to 
ascend the rapids. 

Progressive man never rests, and when an obstacle 
comes in his way he will overcome it somehow. So 



The Beautiful River 5 

men set their wits to work to outwit the river and 
determined to dig canals around the rapids. 

The first attempt at the Rapid "DePlaw," was begun 
on the American side, the river being smaller at that 
point. But it was a failure for the engineers did not 
get the locks large enough to allow boats to pass, and 
the British government seized the opportunity the 
failure afforded and set men to digging on the Cana- 
dian side; and in time, but before my time, a dam 
was built between the island and mainland on the 
American side, then a drawbridge higher up, and still 
another bridge below the dam, but not quite reaching 
the island, it stopped near the old locks that were a 
failure — but with the dam and drawbridge the island 
was pretty well connected to the mainland and the 
turbulent waters set to rest. 

This island three miles long and from one and a 
half wide in the widest place to only a half mile wide 
at a point where the earth had been worn away and 
formed a bay, called Ogden's Bay — was owned by 
Isaac Ogden an English gentleman. In the center of 
the island was his residence built of stone and in the 
style of all English manor houses. The grounds 
were magnificent with beautiful lawns sloping down 
to the river's brink, there were beds of flowers and 
flowering shrubs and blossoming trees and for a back 
ground the primeval forest reaching to the river on the 
west; and such a river as it was. 

Away up near the head of the island the water was 
as smooth as glass, and one looking at it would think 
no ripple could disturb its surface. But just below 



6 Fortune's Wheel 

and completely spanning the river from the island to 
the Canadian side were the boilers. We called them 
boilers because the water boiled and there seemed 
to be great caldrons below the surface heated by invisi- 
ble fires ; and the waters boiled and twisted about like 
a living thing in pain. Then it leaped into the air artd 
tossed its spray in showers, as though in defiance of 
the chained demon below, who kept guard over the 
caldrons. Then the waters sped away down the river, 
leaping, tumbling, dashing and crashing, carrying 
everything on its bosom in a mad belter skelter, hurry 
skurry race toward the ocean. But below and miles 
down the river is the Long Sault, a rapids much 
more frightful than either of the two mentioned and 
the waters must be caught by another demon much 
more terrible than either of the two who keep guard 
over the Lachine and "De Flaw" rapids and the waters 
will be turned, and twisted, and tortured into agonies 
worse than before, then they will be released and 
glide peacefully on until they finally rest at home in the 
bosom of old ocean, the home of all the waters. 

I will tell many more things about the beautiful 
river before finishing my reminiscence, for it played an 
important part in my young life. It was there a thing 
to dehght in. Its beauty never palled, and though we 
were forbidden and forbidden, we sought its cool, 
rippling, murmuring water every time we could steal 
away and get there. 

When they built the dam between the island and the 
mainland, they left an opening near the shore of the 
mainland and built a canal along the shore, this gave 



The Beautiful River 7 

the water an outlet through the canal and the dam 
was left perfectly dry and we could walk over to the 
island on it any time, and too, it furnished a shorter 
route, the drawbridge being higher up. We loved 
the dam much better than the bridge and never missed 
a chance to cross it, on our way to the island. 

There was a large flouring mill at the head of 
the canal, and all along the canal and dam were mills, 
shops, factories and foundries. 

We were acquainted with them all ; for we visited 
them as often as we could get the chance to do so. 
They were such curious places we were never tired of 
them, and wandered through them at our own sweet 
will — when we could steal away from parental rule. 

There never was another such child's paradise as the 
island. It lay there like an enchanted land, resting 
on the bosorn of the beautiful river, a thing to allure, 
to charm, and to encourage disobedience in little chil- 
dren. For we could never resist it and went there 
every time wo got an opportunity. We even ran away 
to get there. There was a subtile something in the 
murmur of the rippling water lapping and caressing 
the shore; in the cool depths of the beautiful forest, 
in the orchards, barns, drives, and walks that drew 
us there as though a magnet were attracting us and we 
were helpless in its charm. 

Oh, how many hours have I sat on the west bank 
of the beautiful island and watched the great ocean 
steamers, sailing vessels, and rafts of timber from the 
Canadian woods shoot the rapids, " De Plaw." 

In life there are no such hours as come to childhood ; 



8 Fortune's Wheel 

no charm Hke wandering on the banks of a mighty 
river, one of nature's mysteries. 

Now if you will come with me we will cross the 
dam and visit the lovely island. First we must climb 
these stairs for there is no other way of getting to the 
top. I will let you walk on the upper side where the 
water is lapping the very planks on which we are 
stepping, but it cannot come over and you need not 
fear. 

On the other side it is many feet to the water below 
and sometimes folks are afraid of falling, so just walk 
on the upper side and look up and not down. 

This large mill is a woolen factory. In there, they 
are spinning and weaving cloth. If we go inside we 
will see a spinning jenny and great looms for weaving ; 
but to-day we are going to the island and will not stop 
at any mill only the " Paper Mill ; " we never miss that. 
It is so curious we cannot pass it by. A door opens off 
from the dam and in the first room is the great vat for 
soaking the rags and that queer revolving thing in the 
center is the mill which grinds them into pulp. How 
awful they look and how horrid they smell? Can 
they really make paper from such filthy looking 
things ? Yes, we will go down these stairs and see the 
great machinery work and then we can see the paper 
coming out ; and it is as white as snow. There are girls 
to take the sheets as they are lopped off by the great 
knives. If we go up several flights of stairs we will 
see other girls sorting rags and see all sorts of ma- 
chinery running, for there is a fiax mill in connection 
with this paper mill, though just what they do, I do 



The Beautiful River 9 

not know. It is the paper making that seems to in- 
terest children more than anything else. But we 
must hurry away from this place and go straight to 
the island. 

Now we are in the center of it and right before us 
is the manor house looking very imposing. It is four 
stories high. We cannot enter for it is a sacred pre- 
cinct only open to the privileged few. I have been in 
some of the rooms. Children seem to get in every- 
where. One of the housekeepers was a widow and her 
children lived with us a short time, and once when they 
went to see their mother I went too and she took me 
to see some of the rooms and they were very lovely 
with their rich hangings of silk and tapestry. 

There is an excellent driveway across the island and 
we may stop in the woods. 

What is that little enclosure? It is a cemetery 
where this rich and exclusive family bury their dead, 
and that tall monument is in memory of one son 
whose body lies on a Southern battle field. He was a 
Rebel officer and fell with the lost cause. The cemetery 
is beautifully kept and the large pansies look like guar- 
dian spirits keeping watch over the sleeping ones be- 
low. We will not disturb even a petal for there is 
something very sacred about burial places and ruth- 
less indeed would the hand be which could remove a 
flower planted there by loving hands. 

To-day we will journey down the island to the foot 
one and a half miles away. But we will see so many 
things of interest on the way perhaps we will not mind 
if we do get weary. 



lo Fortune's Wheel 

In going through this large orchard we may gather 
some harvest apples to eat: for the Bible says the 
stranger may gather to eat. 

It was a beautiful custom the Jews had in the olden 
time, the planting of orchards for the stranger. 

Here we find acres and acres of llax growing. How 
pretty it looks with its little blue blossom looking right 
straight up to heaven as though thanking the All 
Father, for tliis life of beauty and usefulness. 

That red brick building is a farm house. The island 
is divided into three farms, and here the dairy is kept. 
We will ask the good girl at the door for a drink of 
milk. How delicious it tastes, the cows get only tame- 
grass to eat and there is no taint of feed. 
■ Here are shade trees and places inviting us to rest. 
Now the path runs right by the river brink but the 
water down there is dark and treacherous. 

Let us strike straight across the field and follow the 
road down ; now climb these bars and we are in an open 
field and just beyond, see that little house; a man by 
the name of Spurback lives there. He has one son, 
a tall, lanky, freckled-faced boy whose name is Em- 
manuel. When his mother took him to be christened, 
the good minister refused to perform the sacred rite 
unless she would change the name, which she refused 
to do. So the boy kept his name and went without 
the christening; that is how we children learned the 
meaning of the word Emmanuel, God with us. 

Let us stand here at the foot of the island and look 
down stream. How far away the main land looks on 



The Beautiful River ii 

cither side and what a different appearance the river 
has. 

On the Canadian side a turbulent flood never rest- 
ing ; on the American side a placid stream inviting us 
to take a row on its bosom for it is at peace with all 
the world. Everywhere are small islands, the river is 
full of them and yes, I see a tiny boat wrestling with 
the turbulent flood. See it rise and fall on the swell of 
the waters ; but it won't go down for my father is at 
the oars, and when he comes near we will signal him 
to take us in. 

Up go the tiny hands waving aloft the little white 
winged flags and father sees us and is coming this 
way. 

He helps us in, asks how we have spent the day, tells 
his little stock of news — for he has been to the other 
side — and rejoices with us for so much of life's bless- 
ings. 

An hour's ride takes us to the little wharf where we 
moor our boat. We scamper out and father gathers 
up the oars and with them across one shoulder, we 
clinging to the other hand — we climb the hill home. 
We are never afraid to enter when we have hold of 
father's hand. 



CHAPTER II 

JOYS OF CHILDHOOD 

I BELIEVE there was never a place in all the world 
that had more real good places for play than our village 
afforded. There was the island always, and then there 
was the river with its bridges, dam and canal. All 
along the dams were vats and flumes, mills and foun- 
dries. At some mills we played in the sawdust and at 
others simply watched the great machinery work. But 
the canal was a joy forever. There were sluices, 
flumes, mill races and waterfalls, for there was such a 
volume running in all the time, the canal was generally 
full and running over through the openings left for the 
purpose. 

It was here we spent days and days never to be for- 
gotten. 

We built our tiny fleets and set them adrift in the 
eddies and watched their journey toward the ocean — 
which we had named the river. We waded and 
splashed water, we would get possession of some tiny 
boat, built by some large boy, who, like Peter the 
Great, aspired to ship building, said boat not large 
enough for one, but what cared we, the water was not 
deep right near the shore and if we tipped over a 
wetting did not matter much, so we kept near the shore 
and paddled about. 

12 



Joys of Childhood 13 

Sometimes these ])'\g ])oys would come upon us un- 
awares and catch us with their boat, then we were 
scolded or " sassed," as the children called it. We 
were not afraid f(;r Seth was j^'enerally with us and 
every boy in the villa^i^e of his size paid him due re- 
spect. They could take their " old boat " ri^ht away 
and we could Iniild a raft. I rememl)er the raft wab- 
bled about even worse than the boat and sometimes 
tipped up and let us in. 

I suppose you think l;y tliis time that we had a very 
indulgent mother to let us come home in such sorry 
bedraj:(.L^led plight. But we did not — she always 
scolded and j:^enerally gave us a more lasting impres- 
sion with a straj) which she had for the purpose. But 
she never sent us to bed without our supper as some 
mothers used to do. 

Her punishments did not cure us of going to the 
river, our passion for going there was greater than 
our fear of mother. We used to say on the way home, 
when we were sure what awaited us, " A lickin don't 
last long and to kill us she dasent," and the very next 
day found us again at the river; if we could get the 
chance. 

There were three creeks called First, Second and 
Third creeks; the first one being about a half mile 
from the village and when we had been forbidden 
the river for a certain time, we would get ofif and 
go to the creek. 

The Catholic cemetery was on one side and the 
Protestant one on the other side, but higher up the 
creek. These cemeteries were a great trial to us and 



14 Fortune's Wheel 

we regretted that our forefathers chose such a lovely 
spot to bury their dead; for next to the beautiful river 
this creek was the most charming place in our young 
world. The banks were abrupt and all' along were 
springs with tiny rivulets trickling down and, oh, 
the lovely flowers which grew along their banks— 
forget-me-nots, buttercups and violets of every wild 
kind. 

In the summer the water was low, the bottom all 
rock and the creek full of fish. Bull Pouts, a funny 
looking fish with skin and no scales, perch and min- 
nows are the ones I remember. 

The boys caught fish. The girls waded and gathered 
flowers and we all sat on the mossy bank under the 
trees and told stories and watched the frogs play in the 
water. 

We never went to this creek only in crowds for there 
were the two graveyards keeping guard on the hill- 
side and only in numbers did we feel safe. We never 
entered the Catholic one, there was something so grew- 
some about it with its black crosses and unkept graves ; 
but sometimes we would climb the hill, get under the 
fence and enter the Protestant one. It was set out 
quite thickly with pine trees and the wind stirred the 
needles just enough to keep up that peculiar moaning 
always to be heard among the pines. 

I never hear the phrase soughing of the wind, but 
I think of that little grave yard far away where many 
of my forefathers are wrapped in their last slumber. 
But the worst thing about this cemetery was a vault, 
a great, black, awful thing. In the early time some of 



Joys of Childhood 15 

these Ogdens had had it built to put their dead ones 
in, but it had not been opened for years. It was built 
of stone and was moss-grown and weather stained, the 
most grewsome thing that had ever crossed my young 
life. A place on top of the ground to put dead ones 
in; why not let them sleep in their natural place, the 
bosom of dear, old, mother earth? In my childhood 
I was very much afraid of the old vault. There were 
steps leading down to an iron door. Around the steps, 
was an iron railing with a tiny door-like gate ; both 
door and gate had great padlocks — and all were 
black and rusty. 

The vault was about eight feet above the ground 
and the top covered with earth, grass, shrubs and 
flowers, but they were flowers born to blush — if not 
unseen — they were surely unsought, for I do not be- 
lieve one of us would have gone up to gather them 
for a king's ransom. We used to say — " if we should 
go up to gather the flowers and the old vault would 
cave in " — then the awfulness would come upon us of 
how we would feel imprisoned there for the shortest 
possible time and we left the rest unsaid and hurried 
away as though pursued by spirits. 

Down the creek the sweet flags grew and the banks 
were fringed with willows. In the spring we dug 
sweet-flag and gathered sticks covered with pussy 
willows. Artichokes grew in the back end of every 
lot and in the spring we dug them to eat. 

Each season had its joys. In winter we had the ice 
for months; and snow and drift had each a joy 
awaiting us. In summer we played ball, a different 



l6 Fortune's Wheel 

game than I see now-a-days. We called it Long 
Dutch. This way of playing ball was better than one 
and two ** old cats," for in Long Dutch every one could 
take a part. 

Then we had marbles, jackstones, mumble peg, and 
kite flying. We walked on stilts, climbed trees, rolled 
hoops, and jumped the rope. 

Our family vehicle was a big wheelbarrow and many 
a ride had we when father had leisure to trundle us 
about. When we would hear the thunder rolling and 
see the black clouds gathering we loved to get out 
the wheelbarrow, put up the wooden sides, get in and 
raise a big umbrella and then tell stories and riddles and 
repeat rhymes until the storm burst upon us, then 
scamper into the house. 

When we played with other children, I do not 
remember going to their homes very many times. We 
usually got together out of doors and trooped off to 
some favorite resort and there spent the time allotted 
to play. There were sand hills and old ruined build- 
ings where we spent many a happy hour. 

The house where great-grandmother had lived — 
she was the second settler in the village — had been 
burnt years before ; but the old ruin was there ; for the 
walls had been built of stone and lime and the fire 
could not consume that and the walls were standing; 
and there was a magnificent view of the river from the 
old ruin, and then the lilacs and roses were running 
wild about the old place and the strawberries grew in 
abundance in the grass. So we were never tired of 
going out to that old ruin. 



Joys of Childhood 17 

We would generally start out eight or ten of us 
and go right out to the old place and promise we would 
play there until time to return, then go straight home. 
But the river was so inviting and the temptation so 
great, we usually forgot our promise and wandered 
down to the edge, and finally wound up at the head 
of the canal. There was a bridge there, and this 
bridge ended at the door of a great flouring mill. 
Here we would stand and watch the water run into the 
canal; and what a dangerous place it was, there was 
no railing around the bridge and the water was so 
deep, it looked green and rushed in with a roar and 
splash and we could hear it rushing through to the 
vv^heel which turned the stones. If we had fallen in, 
nothing could have saved us — we would have been 
beyond the power and might of mortal man. 

When we would grow tired of watching this, we 
had forgotten our promise, or, if not forgotten, had 
bolder grown, and went behind a foundry where there 
was a little fountain formed in some way, by a pipe 
being connected with the canal above, and by the time 
this had begun to stale we had lost all thought of the 
promise and took off our shoes and stockings and 
played along down the canal, wading across the mill 
races, hurrying by the litde waterfalls and ending in 
getting wet. Night would begin to settle down, and 
we with frocks and trowsers wet half way up, and 
shoes in hand, would climb the hill home; and take 
with what grace we could muster the consequences of 
our folly; and it was generally, a good strapping 
argument in favor of keeping away from the river. 



1 8 Fortune's Wheel 

And then we had the shop. In winter, father 
worked at his trade, that of cooper. He made barrels 
and tubs of many varieties and when he would get a 
good many made up, would hire a horse and sleigh 
and go among the farmers and exchange his barrels, 
butter firkins and tubs for their farm produce. F?ither 
was the kindest man in all the world and was never too 
busy to have us about him, so while he worked we 
played and were never in his way. There was a large 
old-fashioned chimney in the shop and we would 
pile the fire with shavings and other refuse from the 
work bench and do anything we wanted tq. We kept 
store and trimmed the two little windows with all 
kinds of things called merchandise. Sometimes we 
were milliners and then the windows looked funny 
enough with their display of hats and bonnets in the 
very latest fashion; for no one had ever seen any 
thing like them before. 

There was one thing in the old shop that fascinated 
me. I will try and describe it. Over the old chimney 
hung one picture. I do not know why it was there 
unless to keep before the minds of any men who might 
work there the thought that death was on their track 
and after that the judgment. The picture was a dual 
one. On one side was a man with horns and long tail 
and something of a spike in the end of it. He had a 
pitchfork in his hand and was surrounded by fire and 
smoke. His flesh was so thin, his ribs could be plainly 
seen and he had the most diabolical expression on his 
face I ever remember to have seen anywhere in all 
my life. A grinning, satisfied look as though some 



Joys of Childhood 19 

one was suffering intense pain and he was rejoicing. 
On die other side was the face of a man with eyes 
meekly upturned toward heaven ; there was a summer 
sky and white clouds floating overhead. An atmos- 
phere of peace seemed to pervade this part of the 
picture, but no one ever explained the picture to me 
and it took me years and years to grasp its full sig- 
nificance. 

The old shop was quite large and had three rooms. 
Two below and one overhead. We would mount the 
ladder leading up stairs and there find any amount of 
queer old-fashioned things which had come from, no 
one seemed to know where. Once a poor sick man 
with a wife and two little girls came to the village, 
and having no place to stay father let them in the 
back room of the old shop. Mother secured some work 
for the woman. She could make such pretty little 
bonnets called sunbonnets — and somehow the family 
seemed to belong to us. You see, we had done them 
a kindness and we loved them. My father and mother 
though poor were never too poor to help others. 

And we had an uncle who owned a farm out from the 
village and we went there many times. There was a 
wood lot at the back end of the farm and we would 
go there to gather wintergreens and berries and spruce 
and tamarack gum. There was a little stream across 
this farm; just the place to wade and make mud pies. 

My uncle's youngest children were all boys, but they 
were the very nicest boys to play with in all the world. 
I cannot recall to memory anything they ever did that 
was not kind and good. 



20 Fortune's Wheel 

When I went there to spend the day, they would 
play just like girls. We waded and made mud pies ; 
went to the woods and gathered berries and gum; 
hunted eggs in the big barns ; and when everything else 
failed, they put up a swing, and swung me, while I 
told them stories. I had such a good memory that qny 
story I had heard or read I could repeat; not word 
for word but just in my own words. These boys 
living on the farm did not hear so many stories as I 
did, and I was always welcome. 

My uncle had married a Catholic woman— her 
brother was a priest— and of course her family had to 
be Catholics too. Even my uncle was made into 
one, such is the influence wielded by women ; and still 
in the face of this, many are clamoring for their rights. 
Why, a woman can do as she pleases with the sterner 
sex and the children are influenced by women more 
than all the other influence in the wide world. 

This woman was good, and her influence good. 
My uncle was a successful man in his line, that of 
farmer. But their children did not have the advan- 
tage of books in their young days that children in other 
denominations got. Catholics as a rule do not let their 
children— and others older than children— read pro- 
miscuously, and when I went there I was warmly 
C welcomed by these boys. Of course we had a very 
limited amount of books; but mother let us read all 
we could get and that was something, and we were 
very willing to impart the knowledge we got from 
them to our cousins who had no books. 
My uncle would come into church on Sunday morn- 



Joys of Childhood 21 

ing fasting, and as soon as the mass was ended he 
would come into our house and go into mother's cup- 
board and get '' a bite " just to stay his stomach till 
he got home. His wife's piety was of a deeper sort 
and she fasted until she got home and got her dinner. 
Then when their dinner was over and the chores all 
done, and Sunday afternoon is a long afternoon any 
way — and they not having books it was rather lone- 
some and monotonous and my uncle would get out his 
fiddle and play for the children to dance. We were 
delighted to get the chance to go there on Sunday. 

My father would not have had a fiddle in our house 
for any money. Why, next to cards, a fiddle was the 
greatest argument Satan had in winning souls. 

Father would rather have had us kept away from 
them on Sunday, but it was mother's brother and she 
was the dominant factor in our family and we some- 
times went. 

Of course we thought these people queer in many 
ways. They did so much kneeling, and crossing, and 
praying, and ran to the priest for so many things we 
thought them out of joint with the world. 

But somehow we got more real pleasure out of 
things which were, or seemed to be, out of joint and 
forbidden, than we ever could out of things allowed 
and allowable. 

Human nature is much the same the world over. 



CHAPTER III 

MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

The only thing I can remember about my grand- 
mother is that her eyes were speckled, like a ground 
bird's egg. I had seen a little girl once, who had 
one blue eye and one black eye; but a woman who had 
two eyes aHke, and those speckled, spotted, and 
mottled, were things to cause much wonderment in 
the mind of an observing child ; and that is the reason 
why my grandmother's eyes and not my grandmother 
herself remains in my memory. It was a thing so 
unusual and out of the common, it made that deep and 
lasting impression on my young mind that all unusual 
things do on the plastic mind of youth. 

But my great-grandmother lived with us six years 
and was called into the higher life the winter I was nine 
years' old. Great-grandmother had had several chil- 
dren, my mother's mother had been one, but she had de- 
parted this life and left her mother, as a legacy to us, 
the very best legacy we could have had. 

I do not know why this arrangement was made. 
She had sons who were wealthy men, but she lived 
with us instead of them. She was the joy of our 
childhood. As I write I have a photograph of her 
before me taken from an old daguerreotype; but I 
remember the face well : large featured but 'such a 

22 



My Great-Grandmother 23 

gentle expression that heaven's own peace seemed 
resting there; hair parted meekly, and combed 
smoothly over the temples ; mild blue eyes, and a large 
mole on the side of her chin. Now moles are not a 
thing of beauty on a woman's face, but great-grand- 
mother would not look natural even in a story without 
the mole. There is a snowy cap with full frills over 
the ears and a smooth space across the top of the 
head, a snowy kerchief across her bosom, a dress of 
some dark stuff and a string of gold beads completes 
the costume. 

Dear old grandmother! She had learned in that 
long ago the things for which men are seeking still : 
that if you want peace you must carry it with you and 
if God is not in your heart He does not exist for you. 

Peace was a constant guest in her bosom, and fell 
like a benediction on all who came into her presence. 

I cannot remember her ever being fretful or dis- 
turbed and she had cause, for sjae was an invalid and 
lay in bed eleven years before hearing the summons — 
" It is enough ; come up higher." 

Mother's room was large and opened off the living 
room and grandmother's bed was on one side. At the 
foot was a bureau, at the head a stand and chair. 
Three times a day she sat in the chair and took her 
meals from the stand. These were the only times she 
ever sat up only on Sunday and then the wife of the 
Scotch tailor came in and gave her a bath and made 
her bed. 

The bed was never made at any other time. I 
suppose she thought mother had enough work with her 



24 Fortune's Wheel 

numerous family, so she lay still and kept the covers 
straight, for the bed was always in order. 

I used to watch the process of her bed making and 
knew everything which would be done. 

The straw was thoroughly stirred in the under tick, 
the feather bed turned over and shaken up, the bolster 
beaten and put across the top or head, the clean sheets 
put in place, the quilts or covers put on, the pillows 
arranged just right, and grandmother, looking all 
white and clean would get in the middle, the quilts were 
turned back and the white sheet folded over and there 
she lay a very image of peace and gentleness. 

As a little girl her name was Phebe Winchester. 
Her father was a paymaster in the Revolutionary war 
and' she had seen General Washington many a time. 

She was born and brought up in the shadow of 
Bunker HilJ and had many interesting things to tell us 
of those stirring times when our forefather fought for 
liberty and against " the tax on tea." 

She repeated the tale of the Boston Tea Party over 
and over again, and my mother's father was one of the 
men who, disguised as Indians, boarded those ships 
and emptied the contents of those tea chests into the 
sea thus immortalizing one tea party. 

There was a picture in her room of the " Battle of 
Bunker Hill," and in the foreground the dying General 
Warren. 

This picture kept the whole history fresh in her 
memory and to it we were indebted^ for many a tale 
told of the war. 

She tried to explain to us the four great principles 



My Great-Grandmother 25 

embodying the declaration of Independence, and told 
how enthusiastic our forefathers were when that great 
instrument was signed ; how the boy shouted " ring, 
ring," and the old bell man rang, as he had never rung 
before, and how at New York, the populace tore down 
the leaden statue of George Third, and cast it into 
bullets. 

She explained treason and told of one man who 
was a patriot good and true, at one time, and how he 
betrayed his country, and became an exile from his 
native land and was despised by the people of the land 
of his adoption. Dear grandmother tried to explain 
to us that it was not so much for the love of gold that 
Arnold sold the country but rather for the deep love 
of revenge which has actuated many a man since man- 
kind has lived in communities and practiced governing 
the people by a form called — government ; and he, like 
many another, who has dug pitfalls for others, was 
the greatest sufferer in the end. 

Jealousy and revenge have their part in the " Great 
Plan " too, and have helped to develop the human 
race. No American boy or girl can listen to the story 
of Arnold and his treason without feeling deep emo- 
tions of patriotism. 

Grandmother knew more stories than any other 
member of our family, and why shouldn't she? She 
was the oldest member and had had more time to lay 
up a store. But her stories were innocent and full of 
interest and never made us afraid to go to bed in the 
dark. 

I have always loved the twilight hour; because the 



26 Fortune's Wheel 

earliest recollections of my childhood, are of tales told 
to us in the twilight by this saintly old grandmother. 

They say children love rhyme and rhythm, and 
remember better tales told that way. Well, grand- 
mother taught that way, and though I am getting to 
be an old woman now, I remember them still. 

Mother was always at work. She seemed to draw 
her life's nourishment from hard grinding toil, and 
when she had nothing else to do bound shoes. Shoes 
were made by hand in those days, and when you 
bought a pair they generally lasted a long time. 

Mother never told stories, she had something else 
to do. So while she washed the dishes or did other 
duties around the house, we would gather around 
grandmother's bed in the twilight and she would be- 
gin. I will just repeat a few. 

Entry, mentry, cutry, corn, 
Apple seed and apple thorn, 
Wire, brier, limber, lock, 
Six geese in a flock, 
Two flew east, and two flew west, 
Two flew over the cuckoo's nest. 
Dee, day, dine, time to go to dinner 
Jack whipped John, blow the bellows, — 
Little old man. 
Rumble, rumble, in the pot, one, two, three, out goes — he! 

This one we used to use when choosing up sides 
for a game of ball and the last " man " on whom the 
last word fell, by pointing to a child for each word 



My Great-Grandmother 27 

had the first choice of a ** man," for even in those days 
some were better ball players than others and the 
winning side depended on the men chosen. 

It was she, who taught us the story of the " House 
that Jack built." I do not know who the author was 
but she knew it in that long ago. 

There was one story which could be spun out oh 
ever so long: the length depending entirely on the 
mood of the listeners or upon what mother was doing. 
I do not believe grandmother ever considered herself 
at all. It began this way : 

As I was going over London bridge, 

I found a penny and bought me a kid. 

Kid wouldn't go. 

See by the moonlight, 'tis most midnight, 

Time kid and I were home an hour and a half ago. 

I went a little, further and found stick, 

Stick wouldn't beat kid, 

Kid wouldn't go. 

See by the moonlight, 'tis most midnight, 

Time kid and I were home an hour and a half ago. 

I went a little further and found axe, 

Axe wouldn't chop stick ; 

Stick wouldn't beat kid. 

Kid wouldn't go. 

See by the moonlight, 'tis most midnight, 

Time kid and I were home an hour and a half ago. 

If we were eager listeners, this tale would be spun 
out, an endless length ; but if we could not stay, she 
would begin somewhere and tell how the water began 
to quench the fire. 



a8 Fortune's Wheel 

The fire began to burn Bill, 

Bill began to use axe, 

Axe began to chop stick, 

Stick began to beat kid. 

Kid began to go, 

See by the moonlight, 'tis most midnight, 

And kid and I got home an hour and a half ago. 

One story she used to tell was of an old woman 
who lived near a medical college and she kept a large 
flock of geese and the goose pasture was right by the 
college. Now these students once upon a time were 
making pills and for some reason they thought them 
a failure and tossed them over the fence into the goose 
pasture. 

The geese seemed to think differently and soon had 
them all eaten up. 

That night when the old woman went to drive them 
home, she found them lying on the ground dead. 

She was very poor and these geese constituted her 
sole wealth and of course she keenly felt her loss. 
But being of a very economical turn she decided to 
save the feathers at least and soon had stripped them 
of all that were worth saving and tossed the geese 
in a pile to await the morning, then she would bury 
them. But in the morning she found them all wad- 
dling about, but in such a sorry pHght. 

You see the pills were not a failure after all. It 
was in the days when men were just beginning to 
find out that there were drugs in the world that could 
make living things like dead and they still be unin- 
jured. 



My Great-Grandmother ig 

I do not remember how the geese came out but that 
flock never quite got out of my head, and every time I 
would see a flock of geese I would wonder how they 
would look with most of their feathers plucked off. 

Grandmother was a communicant of the Episcopal 
church and whenever the communion was observed at 
the church, the minister and some of the leading mem- 
bers — among them some of these Ogdens — always 
came and administered the sacrament to her, and in 
leaving they would take her hand and many a time 
a bright gold coin was left in her palm. 

I know she was never out of small coins, for when- 
ever we would get too noisy for her she would tell 
us if we would sit still an hour by the clock she would 
give us a coin. I have sat and watched the hands on 
the old clock in the corner many an hour for the small 
wage of one copper. And such a funny old clock as it 
was! The face was away up to the ceiling and the 
weights when run down stood on the floor. When 
mother wound it she did it by pulling the weights 
down. There was a string and a weight on each end, 
and when one was up the other was down. 

That is the way I earned my first copper by sitting 
still and watching the old clock. 

Grandmother was noted for telling the truth and 
my mother in speaking of her would always say " Yes, 
grandmother never told a lie in her life." 

Well if grandmother never did, she had one son 
whom we children accused of prevaricating. Uncle 
Hamilton, Ham, for short, went west in the early 
time— as far as Detroit. He grew up with the city— 



^o Fortune's Wheel 

as they say — and became wealthy. He used to come 
occasionally to see his mother; and once he told us, 
he had a trunk full of presents for us. He would 
perch us on his knee and describe the lovely things, 
dresses and everything little children could desire, 
even a large wax doll for each girl, and our little hearts 
leaped with excitement ; and hope for the time to come 
when the big trunk would be set down at our gate. 
But baggage was slow in those days, very slow, so 
slow, that uncle Hamilton's visit ended before the 
trunk came and we never saw it. 

Afterwards we thought he told us those things just 
to leave a good impression for the time being, and as 
early disappointments help us to bear later ones, we 
have forgiven him. Grandmother was taken with a 
pain in her ear and in three days it was all over. She 
had lived such a pure, simple life, close to the great 
heart of nature whose center and soul God is, that it 
was only a zephyr that stirred the current of her life, 
and like a leaf, she fell gently, and slept, on the bosom 
where she had, leaned through a long and beautiful 
life. She was eighty-four when she passed to the 
other side. 

Of all the pictures that hang on the walls of my 
childhood's memory, this one, next to my father's, 
seems fairest and best. I think of her in the twilight 
hour and sometimes feel that she now, a beautiful 
spirit, comes and stirs me to greater possibilities than 
I have ever known. 

She was a help to me here, why not now that she 
has passed to the other side? I always have a feeling 



My Great-Grandmother 31 

that I am not quite alone at any time and that loved 
ones are watching me and when I am worthy help me. 

Dear grandmother; her influence still lives, and 
her memory will always be a stimulus to greater and 
better action and purpose in life. 

I was at my aunt's when she departed this life, but 
an uncle came for aunt and me. When we reached 
home I found her lying in the room where she had 
spent the last years of her life ; but now so silent and 
still. The arrangements for the funeral were all com- 
pleted and she lay in the coffin. I stood by her side 
and somehow death did not seem so terrible when I 
saw her wrapped in his silent embrace. 

She was buried next day and aunt went home, 
but I did not go with her. I set up such a crying to 
stay home that my sister was sent in my place. There 
were things going on in our village that winter that 
were of more importance to me than anything else in 
all the world and aunt's household was so changed that 
I was very, very miserable there. 



CHAPTER IV 

FATHER^S PEOPLE 

Nearly all of father's people lived just across the 
beautiful river in Canada and we could see over there 
any time by turning our eyes westward. 

His father and mother died before I was born and 
as a httle girl, I used to be so glad to think that they 
were dead and I did not have to visit at their home ; 
for they had always lived in a haunted house and I 
had heard father recite their strange and awful ex- 
periences, with spirits that walk at dead of night, 
so many -times that I was filled with horror over their 
sad trials with these nocturnal visitants and was glad 
that they were dead and the old haunted house had 
fallen into decay. 

But two sisters and one brother lived near the old 
homestead and then, there was a host of aunts, uncles 
and cousins, and we were always welcomed by them. 

They were a kind-hearted lot of folks anyway, 
and though most of them were poor, they were good- 
natured and had the same kind look and smile to 
bestow on us that father always had. 

One cousin, an elderly man, carried on a dual busi- 
ness for he was a ferryman and smuggler both. He 
ferried all classes of people across the beautiful river, 
but the principal thing which he smuggled was 

32 



Father's People ^3 

whiskey. He had a tin can made to fit the size and 
shape of his form, and when it was filled with whiskey 
it was fastened to his body and then his clothes were 
put on over the can thus concealing his business; for 
no one would ever think, to see him walking along 
the street, that the principal part of his bulk was 
whiskey. But appearances then, as now, were often 
deceiving and many a man even now-a-days is com- 
posed of bulk not always true avoirdupois. Somehow 
it is a relief to me at this distance to remember this 
man as a member of father's family tree, for they 
were the most gentle, loving, kind-hearted, unsophisti- 
cated, docile lot of folks in all the world, and would 
sit for hours together saying nothing; but if you 
chanced to look at one of them, they smiled such a 
gentle, quiet smile as though they were satisfied with 
themselves and. all the world. And what is a family 
good for any way with no black sheep to give a little 
color to the whole flock. 

It is the bold adventurous spirits after all that keep 
the wheels of society from being clogged; and they 
certainly must have their place in the great plan, else 
the kind father over all would not let them prosper as 
they generally do. 

This bold smuggler usually visited us after dark 
and always in company with some man whom he had 
ferried across the river to give an honest look to his 
business. 

We children were never tired of hearing him relate 
hair-breadth escapes from the customs officer — the 
■fury of the rapids was nothing compared to the danger 



34 Fortune's Wheel 

of being caught by the lonely man on shore who was 
looking after the interest of the government. 

He alone was to be feared, though I remember his 
son, a lad of eighteen or twenty used to Come to our 
house after dark and go with my brothers to Canada 
to purchase all sorts of clothing. Perhaps the -cus- 
toms officer did not know how law breaking his family 
were. We knew though we never dared to tell; for 
the principal part of our clothing came from Canada 
too ; and came when the world was wrapped in a man- 
tle that the eyes of even customs officers could not 
penetrate. 

The dark mantle of the poor old world has covered 
many an act that would not bear the searching light of 
day. 

Aunt Mehitable, father's eldest sister, lived on a 
farm twelve miles back from the river and it was a 
great treat to go there for there were so many things 
of interest on the big farm. 

The family consisted of my aunt and uncle and 
seven sons, all in a, row, and one daughter. Jacob the 
seventh son, had the healing power. They said he 
could heal any kind of disease just by laying his hand 
on the afflicted part. He was a very shy, bashful 
youth though, and could never be induced to try his 
healing power. 

One old woman who had heard of his power had 
a big wen on her head that disfigured her and lessened 
her chances for making a second matrimonial venture, 
came to see him and coaxed and entreated him to heal 
her saying it would be almost no trouble to him to 



Father's People 35 

lay his hand on the wen and spirit it away ; but Jacob 
was inexorable and ran to the great barn and hid 
under the straw until she left the place. 

My uncle was something of an invalid, one of the 
kind that can ahvays eat but are never quite strong 
enough to work. He said he had done his part years 
ago while raising the boys and the time had come for 
him to rest and take it easy. So he sat around the 
kitchen stove day after day with his head tied up in 
a big red handkerchief. He never complained of pain 
but said the trouble seemed to be a sort of tired feel- 
ing that made him unfit for work. 

I asked my aunt why she did not have Jacob lay 
his hand on the poor invalid and cure him; but she 
said they could never tell just where the trouble lay, 
so the poor invalid could not be healed. 

There was another member in this family who did 
not work, the eldest son. Under British rule the eldest 
son is heir to the estate, and my uncle's eldest son and 
namesake sat around the house or walked about the 
estate looking after his interests with the eye of a bird 
of prey. Things were kept in their proper places and 
there was no waste going on either. 

I suppose this man must have done plenty of hard 
work in his younger days for I have been told by my 
mother that this boy and my aunt did all the work 
years before, and that my uncle had always complained 
of that tired feeling which finally ended in complete 
invahdism, and thus he had worked on my aunt's 
sympathy, and she usually sent him to the house to 
rest while she and the boy did the work. Mother 



^6 Fortune's Wheel 

has told me that years before when they first settled 
on the farm my aunt decided that the first old log- 
house would never last until they were grown rich 
enough to build a fine brick one such as I remember 
there — and knowing my uncle would never get rested 
enough to help build the new log one ; she sent him on 
a visit to some relatives, and when he returned she and 
her family were all settled in the new house, my aunt 
planning everything and getting the work done herself. 

So the time had come when the eldest son did not 
work either. But he was something of a philosopher 
and had learned many a lesson from fife while jogging 
along. He had learned that a penny saved was worth 
two earned, and his wealth was increasing accordingly 
for there was an abundance of everything on the farm 
in the way of raw material. Great flocks of sheep, 
and endless quantities of wool — herds of cattle and 
horses, pigs large and small, and cackling hens and 
hissing geese gave evidence of abundant feathered 
tribes. There were acres of flax grown and rude home 
machinery converted it into cloth, a hatchel run by the 
younger boys beat the flax into tow and the flax wheels 
of which they had three, run by these same boys, spun 
it into thread and then my aunt converted it by means 
of a loom into cloth for the family use. The wool was 
made into cloth much the same, the carding and 
spinning all being done on the farm as well as the 
weaving. 

It was a joy to visit them and watch the domestic 
machinery of this household run. Every one seemed 
to know just what to do and were cheerful in the doing. 



Father's People 37 

After the day's work was done on the farm the boys 
in turn seated themselves at the flax wheels and spun 
a stint before retiring for the night. They could knit 
stockings and mittens as well as my aunt could, and 
were just as gentle about everything as she was too. 
These boys could not help being gentle, their father 
was too tired tO' ever display any spirit, and their 
mother — if she had possessed a lively spirit — never 
had any time to display it, and so they were brought 
up as gently as kittens in an old maid's house. 

I used to look at these gentle folks and think if they 
had been endowed with as much spirit as we had in- 
herited on one side of our family things would be 
very different. 

But then, they had not been endowed and so they 
were gentle folks. 

I said that there was an abundance of everything on 
the farm and so there was, but the maxim " a penny 
saved is worth two earned " was applied to every- 
thing. The garments were worn as long as they 
would hold together or there was enough of the origi- 
nal left to mend. Butter and cream were used spar- 
ingly on the table, and maple syrup when used at all 
was put on in a large saucer. I remember as a little 
girl I would look at the small quantity and think; 
our Seth could eat it all at one meal — yet it did for this 
family of ten and me a visitor too. 

There were great cakes of maple sugar on a shelf 
in the large buttery, but they were never taken down 
and chopped into small pieces to eat from the hand. 

When this sugar was made in the spring they usu- 



38 Fortune's Wheel 

ally sent us each a small cake called a " patty cake," 
and if we chanced to visit them during the summer we 
had to be content with looking at the big cakes on the 
buttery shelf. 

My Aunt Mehitable was an original woman, and she 
and her family wore home-made clothing in every 
sense of the term, for the material was raised on the 
farm and made into clothes there too, and my aunt 
fashioned the garments after her own ideas of what 
garments should be for comfort and durability and 
they were marvels. I do not believe she ever saw, 
much less consulted a fashion book in all her life. 

T remember some cloaks she and her daughter used 
to wear, they were made of some all wool goods spun 
and woven by her own hand and colored black by 
her own process too. These cloaks were long, coming 
to the bottoni of their dresses and were just as full 
at the top as at the bottom. They were pleated at the 
top and sewed on to a band, then there was an extra 
little cape to hide the pleats — both the large and small 
capes were padded with wool to make them warm — then 
quilted to keep the wool in place. No doubt they were 
warm and comfortable but they looked funny enough. 

My aunt had a hood to match her cloak made of the 
same material and padded and fixed in rolls, the front 
one rolled away from her face and stood up high and 
gave her a very striking appearance. A person in- 
terested in fashion would have to look twice before 
solving the mystery of her toilet. 

We children were always glad to see her figure 
rise above the hill by the river when she came to visit 



Father's People 39 

us. She was so gentle we loved to have her come. 
She always wore the same kind of garments, and 
they must have annoyed our mother for she used to 
always say when she would see aunt coming, *' I 
should think Mehitable would buy a shawl and not 
wear that cloak handed down from the ark." But Aunt 
Mehitable had qualities of character that clothes could 
not hide. 

When we visited there we were told all sorts of 
ghost-stories, for these people were very superstitious : 
one thing we were glad for was, that their house was 
not haunted and never had been. They had built it 
themselves and no crime had ever been committed in 
it. But there were haunted houses and witches all 
over the country and strange stories they told us of 
what witches could do. They could dry up the cows, 
cause the chimneys to smoke, make the water in the 
well salt, and even addle the eggs under the sitting 
hens just by willing these things done. A witch was 
all powerful. Every old hag in the neighborhood was 
treated kindly for fear of the mischief they might do 
if treated otherwise. 

My uncle had had a strange experience once and that 
made him of some consequence in the neighborhood 
for he had one story to tell that never grew stale or 
old — ghost stories are always new. I suppose it is 
on account of the peculiar sensation with which they 
are always accompanied. 

They had an ashery on the farm and the boys, when 
not engaged with other work, gathered ashes from all 
over the country, and put them in the leaches and ran 



40 Fortune's Wheel 

off the lye, and then boiled the lye down into potash 
and in this way gathered in a few dollars. 

The eldest son had an eye for business, and some- 
times when the hard part of the work was done and 
nothing remained to do but keep the fire and watch 
the pot boil — he would send the boys to work on, the 
farm and set my uncle to watch the lye boil down. 

Well, my uncle had his poor health and appetite too 
so he would take a bite to eat with him and some cold 
tea in an old tin teapot, just enough to stay his 
stomach and keep off that gnawing feeling — which 
was one of his ailments — while he worked at watching 
the fire and lye — this gnawing of the stomach always 
troubled him worse when he worked — he used to say. 

One day while he was thus at work, and faithfully 
attending to the task, that little tin teapot walked off 
the bench by his side where he had set it to have it 
handy, and walking across the ashery mounted a ladder 
which led to a loft and stopped on a high round and 
tipped up and spilt the whole contents of the pot on 
the floor. My uncle declared that he was wide awake 
and that it was a warning that he would not live long. 
Of course he ran home as fast as his feeble health 
would permit and could never be induced to enter the 
ashery again. 

I remember while I was there one spring there was 
a heavy rain and thaw which opened a little creek 
which flowed not m.any rods from their house, and 
when the frogs were thus released they set up that 
peculiar song of gladness they always sing at their 
deliverance in the spring, and when my aunt heard 



Father's People 41 

them she ran and got her broom and opened the front 
door and began sweeping and repeated in a sort of 
incantation, Bedbugs and fleas do not botlier me 
this whole year but go to my next door neighbor and 
bother them." I said what good will that do, are you 
troubled with such pests ? and she rephed, " No, I 
always do this and it keeps them away." I did not ask 
any more questions but wondered what would happen 
if the next door housewife should send her bedbugs 
and fleas to aunt — never once thinking that probably 
that was just what she was doing while my aunt sent 
hers there. 

But for all their queer superstitious ways they were 
the kindest-hearted folks in all the world and we were 
delighted to get a chance to visit them. 

Two members of this family were never married, 
the eldest son and the only daughter. She, a woman 
now long past the half century mark still keeps the 
house for the eldest son, a feeble old man. The world 
has changed and so have these people who are left. 
The last picture I saw of this cousin her dress was of 
brown silk and made quite in the fashion. 

Father's other sister in Canada lived right by the 
canal and it was our delight when there to sit on the 
bank and watch the big ocean steamers and vessels 
going through on their way to the Great Lakes. 

This sister was not a bit well off and during all my 
visits I cannot remember their ever having anything 
to eat but potatoes and fried meat — ^iDread and butter 
and red beet-pickles. My uncle's father and mother 
lived with them and they had sugar for their tea though 



42 Fortune's Wheel 

no other member of the family ever got any, that was 
considered for their use ; for the old grandmother kept 
the sugar in a small wooden box, and this box had a 
tight cover and at the table the box was kept in her lap, 
and when not in use the cover was kept shut tight so no 
child had a chance to smuggle a little to sweeten things. 
But what they had to eat never interfered with our 
going there to visit; for they were like father gentle, 
loving and kind, and always greeted us with a smile 
and continued to smile upon us while we remained. 

To be sure they told hair-raising stories of ghostly 
experiences and the doings of witches, but then they 
never left us alone, some one kept right by us all the 
time and no ghost could hurt us, and we were polite 
to- all the old women our cousins pointed out as witches. 

It was here I learned that if a baby looked into a 
mirror before it w^as a year old it would not live to be 
a year old. When I got home I let our baby look 
in the glass and it lived to be many years old, that is 
how I found out about that. Then I learned if one 
spilt salt and did not run and put a pinch on the fire 
they would surely quarrel with some one, and if one 
was going from home on a visit and forgot something 
and returned for the same their luck would all be gone 
unless they sat down in a chair for a minute; and if 
a person came in one door and went out through 
another it brought visitors. Sticks floating in the tea 
brought beaux to see the young women, and a dish 
cloth dropped to the floor brought a slovenly person on 
a visit, and to pare the finger nails on Friday and 
not think of the red fox's tail was a sure cure for 



Father's People 43 

headache, and if a woman looked in the mirror too 
long the evil one came and looked over her shoulder. 

I remember I always hurried and combed my hair 
as quickly as possible after that for fear of seeing a 
diabolical face surmounted by horns peering at me 
over my shoulder. This one it seems to me might have 
a moral attached, for I believe many a poor unfor- 
tunate has come to grief by standing too long in front 
of a looking glass. 

These people had a sign for everything, from 
sneezing before breakfast to the proper way of getting 
into bed at night. They planted and gathered in the 
moon and killed animals for meat in the moon too. 
But if they were superstitious they all had noble quali- 
ties of mind and heart, there was no scolding or 
whipping at this house, every one seemed contented 
and happy. 

Father's brother had several children and they were 
poor enough, too; had none of the luxuries of life, 
scarcely the necessities, but they seemed happy and 
no unkind word marred the harmony of their house- 
hold. I wondered as a child what made these homes so 
different from mine and thought my lot cast in a hard, 
thorny path, for mother had such a convincing way 
and domineered over us all. 

I saw the day when I understood better and changed 
my mind. 

These relatives on father's side lived always as 
1 saw them in my childhood. They were gentle, kind 
and honest but had no ambition to struggle against 
fate and seemed to think that their path in life had 



44 Fortune*s Wheel 

been carved out for them from before the foundation 
of the world, and it was their business to keep to the 
path in which God had set their feet. If He had 
intended any different, it would have been different 
from the beginning. This class of people are to be 
envied for they get more real solid comfort out of life 
than the aspiring ambitious ones do who know not 
what rest and contentment are. 

When we went there to visit the large girls would 
do all kinds of things for our comfort or pleasure — 
make doll clothes — lie on the bed in the day time and 
tell stories — go walking on the bank of the canal or 
take the boat and row — in fact do anything to make 
our visit a delight ; this was the reason we enjoyed 
getting over to Canada, everything was genial. 
Mother had a way of saying that father's people were 
not smart. and did not know as much as her people did, 
but we children thought good better than smart, and 
some people whom we never dared mention knew a 
good many things which were no benefit to them. Of 
course we never, told mother we suspicioned such a 
thing. One man with a quick, bright intellect and no 
education, and — who is consequently unbalanced — can 
do much more harm in the world than ten men such 
as father's relatives. 

Mother had one brother who had been all the way 
from New York to California overland route. It took 
him four years to make the journey, and when he re- 
turned he only brought himself and his experiences, 
no gold nor treasure of any kind. He had a quick, 
bright intellect and could see through a joke with both 



Father's People 45 

eyes shut, but he failed in getting an education in 
youth and lacked the balance a trained intellect gives 
to mankind. One never knew where to find him. He 
meant well ; oh, yes, most people mean well no matter 
what their behavior and use this excuse to cover their 
misdemeanors. One day this man would sing and 
pray and even preach if the opportunity offered, and 
the next he was just as ready to fight if any one crossed 
him. Father's people never did things that way, what- 
ever their mental capacity they were well balanced and 
if we could not expect any great rise we knew there 
would be little or no fall. 

When we went to visit these people there was en- 
joyment in the preparation and going both; there were 
so many things to get ready. We always wore fresh 
clean clothes : mother would not let us appear un- 
sightly obj ects • among father's people. No matter 
how things might be at home, when we went there, 
we were clean and whole. And then the journey ! 
Father would row us down to the foot of the island 
and we would walk across and stop at Mr. Spurback's 
and get a drink and rest a few minutes, then walk up 
the island fully a mile in the shady path right by the 
river brink. Father would pole the boat up — could not 
row it, the current was so strong — ^but by keeping right 
near the shore he could pole it up and by getting a 
start high up on the island would not fall so low down 
on the opposite side in crossing. When he would 
arrive at the tiny wharf we would be there and ready 
for the dangerous trip across. When all is ready we 
start, and father rows with all his might to keep up 



46 Fortune's Wheel 

as high as possible, but for all his strength and skill 
we find ourselves away down stream on the opposite 
side and must take another long walk while father 
draws the boat up stream with a stout rope; and when 
we arrive where our relatives live some one comes and 
rows us across the canal and we climb the hill and .are 
there. 

Oh that beautiful river! How many times I have 
crossed its restless tide in my father's boat and felt 
while crossing that there was nothing but water and 
sky in all the world; for the rushing waters boiled 
about us as though trying to engulf us and the sky 
smiled above us as though assuring us that a father's 
watchful eye was over all and no harm could come 
to us if we only trusted the two fathers, the earthly and 
the heavenly. 



CHAPTER V 

MY BROTHER SETH 

The members of our family were not of sufficient 
importance to write separately of each, but my narra- 
tive would be incomplete if I did not devote one chap- 
ter at least to my brother Seth, the black sheep in 
our flock. 

We were a strange compound. On mother's side 
we inherited the hard, practical, sturdy, Puritan stock, 
and on father's side the gentle, loving, but credulous 
Dutch disposition, and both were uneducated. This 
made us a common lot of old-fashioned boys and girls, 
a mixture of good and bad, both struggling for the 
supremacy and coming out about even. 

My brother Seth was an exception. He had only 
one element in his make up and that all mischief. 

Looking back over it all through the dim distance 
of years, I think, he must have been the terror of the 
whole village. But to us, he was a brave, daring 
champion. Woe to the big boy who dared molest us 
when he was by ! He could climb the tallest trees, 
swim and skate and do all manner of things that to 
us seemed wonderful. And there were plenty of things 
he could do that people in the village thought won- 
derful ; though they would hardly come under the 
head of those mentioned. He was a disturbing ele- 

47 



48 Fortune's Wheel 

ment, and no doubt had his mission in Hfe just as 
other disturbers have. And as everything has its price 
he was paid in full for disturbing the peace of the 
community. 

No matter what was done if Uncle William's boys 
were not at the bottom of it, then it surely was my 
brother Scth. That was his reputation. I do not sup- 
pose father and mother ever knew half of his mis- 
chievous acts, but for all that he was in disgrace nearly 
all the time. If mother had known all she could have 
kept him tied up to her bed post from week's end to 
week's end. As it was he was there a good share of 
the time. He did not seem to have any more regard 
for old than young, and played his pranks on old ladies 
as" freely as on little girls or boys. He would go on 
dark nights with some other boys and stretch a clothes 
line across, the street to trip up passers by ; not knowing 
nor caring who they might be. The streets were not 
lighted and no one could catch them in the dark and 
he could come home looking as innocent as Noah in 
the ark, and if we waited for him to inform on himself 
we would have been waiting still for he never men- 
tioned his pranks at home, and we, the rest of the 
children, never told on him as you will see farther on. 

But our mother was a queer woman ; she could see 
things done when we were a mile away and her terrible 
habit of asking questions brought some things to the 
surface that should have been kept out of sight and 
hearing. For when brought to light they disturbed the 
household and many times we were punished too for 
not coming home and telling on Seth 



My Brother Seth 49 

I wonder if the mothers of that day ever knew 
that their constant punishment for every Httle offence 
made their children untruthful. 

It surely did, for the children are scarce who will 
tell the straight truth when they know the conse- 
quence to be a severe beating. 

There was an old woman living quite near us who 
had a very large family and she never let the children 
come to the table to eat until they could earn their 
own living. She would scat them on the floor with 
their backs to the wall and give them a portion on a 
plate and they could not have any more. We knew 
this and disliked her, and Seth decided it would be 
serving her right to play a trick on her, and not wish- 
ing to be found out decided to do it on the night of 
All Hallowe'en. 

He knew that a boy had more liberty when he acted 
on his own responsibility and so he seldom or never 
asked advice. Uncle William kept chickens of a very 
fine breed and felt proud of them as no man on our 
street could compete with him in such matters. His 
stock, whether beast or fowl, were sure to be the 
best. 

Seth conceived the plan of stealing a hen from his 
roost and hanging it alive on the old woman's door. 
He did not count on the hen's behaving badly and 
probably never thought of the consequences. He in- 
tended to get the trick done so nicely that no one would 
ever find out who did it. 

He waited until Uncle William and his family were 
all settled for the night — as he supposed — then stole 



50 Fortune's Wheel 

into the coop and got hold of a hen, but she set up 
such a squawking as was never heard from a hen be- 
fore. He did not know what to do with her, and never 
once thought of letting her go now that he had her in 
his hand. So he started off with her she keeping up 
the squawking. 

Uncle William had been expecting something on 
that night and was up waiting, and when he heard the 
hen he lighted his lantern and started for the coop, 
the thief ran and Uncle William after. When Seth 
saw that he was being followed he took out his knife 
and cut off the poor hen's head and thus put an end 
to her squawking but he still kept her in his hand. 

The snow had come early that fall and the ground 
was covered with it and the poor hen's blood trickled 
down on the snow and mingled with his boot tracks. 
After a time finding that he was being followed he 
threw her down and took to his heels and ran and ran. 
He went to the drawbridge and crossed over to the 
island, came down and over the dam and finally got 
home in a very humble frame of mind, for he quietly 
went to bed without being told. 

A half hour later Uncle William came in. He had 
picked up the hen and had her in one hand, the lighted 
lantern in the other, and on his face anger, defiance 
and revenge all mingled. 

Seth's boots were meekly standing against the door 
leading into the chamber. He walked up to them and 
examined them, then said these are the boots I want, 
told his tale and mother called Seth to come down. 
Before they got through with him he confessed it all. 



My Brother Seth 51 

Of course they had no sympathy for the trick he was 
trying to play on the old woman. But their duty was 
plain and such terrible conduct could not go unpun- 
ished so he got a series of punishments. First he was 
made to get on his knees and beg Uncle William's par- 
don — then mother let Uncle William whip him — father 
was gone and if he had been there it would not have 
changed matters — then to punish him further mother 
cooked the hen and was going to make him eat it all. 
I suppose any hungry boy could have eaten a whole 
hen, but Seth decided he had suffered enough and 
early the next morning — without asking anyone's ad- 
vice — started off alone and walked into a distant town 
where mother's sister lived just as the family were at 
dinner. He told them he had come on a visit and 
remained several days. But when aunt set him to 
splitting wood — ra bit jf work any boy despises — he 
thought he had visitfd long enough and the time was 
come to take his departure, and thinking a cane would 
be beneficial in the journey he took down aunt's broom 
and sawed off the handle, and finding it too short 
served the mop stick in the same way. Then went 
home flourishing the cane in the air as he entered the 
yard. He found the hen all eaten and gone, and his 
punishment being over for that offense, began looking 
up some other mischief. Our lot was a very large 
one and so situated that other lots joined us on three 
sides and in that day nearly every one had a few fruit 
trees growing in the back end of their lot. 

There were strange customs too in regard to the 
fruit; for any branches leaning over on a neighbor's 



52 Fortune's Wheel 

lot became the neighbors so far as the fruit was con- 
cerned. 

We had the largest apple orchard in the village, and 
to keep people out who sometimes help themselves 
to such things, father built a high fence around the 
entire orchard. It was the highest fence I ever saw 
and a person on the outside of it could not climb it 
at all. But we, the largest ones of us, could climb up 
to the top from the inside, and many a petty theft 
took place from the top of that high fence. Seth 
usually did the climbing and purloining, the rest en- 
couraging him by our presence. He would take a long 
fish pole and fasten a hook — straightened out — on the 
end of it and spear apples from the neighbor's trees. 
He would draw the limbs of cherry trees to him, then 
strip them of their fruit for our benefit as well as his 
own. 

Poor old Mr. Practon whose lot joined ours never 
got much good of his cherries that grew on our side, 
nor of his ripe currants. We did not mean to be bad, 
but ripe fruit was a great temptation in that day, and 
human nature the same the world over. Whoever 
saw a tree loaded with ripe cherries and not feel 
tempted to reach out the hand and gather some just 
because they do taste so delicious fresh from the tree. 

We were not so much to blame about the currants 
for the bushes had been set along the fence and it 
only needed a very little coaxing to get the branches 
to hang through between the pickets of that high fence 
and when hanging on our side they were ours accord- 
ing to the custom. 



My Brother Seth 53 

We had one apple tree planted in a comer of our 
orchard, and the neighbor whose lot joined ours at that 
point had built a barn right in the corner so that tree 
when loaded with fruit hung on the roof of that barn. 
It was a great trial to us children for it was a choice 
early variety. Grandfather had set the tree there in 
an early day, and it was large and bore abundantly. 
When harvest time came and we started in to gather 
those apples, and Seth would climb to the top of the 
tree and begin shaking the branches it always seemed 
that more apples went over the fence from the roof 
of that barn than fell on our side. And out would 
run those girls and gather them right before our eyes 
and we were helpless. There was the high fence, we 
on our side they and their share on the other. 

But to recompense us in a measure they had two 
very large plum trees by our fence and though they 
could have used a stepladder and gathered their plums, 
Seth took a good deal of pains with those trees and 
saw that they never gathered any that grew on our 
side. 

I have seen him on the top of that fence many a 
time taking plums and Miss Anna would open their 
back door and stand looking at him, he nothing 
daunted, returned the look and kept on taking what he 
considered his share. 

In those days magazines were unknown among the 
common people ; books were nearly as scarce and the 
few newspapers were of inferior quality and they not 
read by the masses, so the common or uneducated peo- 
ple got most of their themes for conversation from 



54 Fortune's Wheel 

current gossip, and everyone's business was known to 
his neighbors almost before it was known at home. 

It was very amusing to note the different persons, 
the drift of their conversation and th'e queer things 
which interested them. 

One old woman on our street was interested- in boys 
and for some reason she was in trouble with some of 
them all the time. They played more pranks on her, 
and received in return more scoldings, than from any 
other person on the street. 

She is seated by her fire on a cool evening in the 
autumn working away on a new pattern for a patch- 
work quilt — a sun-flower design — very puzzling to get 
just right and so she is very intent on her work, when 
all of a sudden her chimney does not draw, smoke 
begins to fill the room and the poor woman takes to 
sneezing. 

She knows what is wrong. This is not the first 
time the thing has happened, and she is not a bit 
superstitious and knows right where to lay the cause. 
*' Those boys again ! " she cries, and goes into her 
little woodshed and gets out heV ladder — she could not 
live without one — climbs to the top of her low roof 
and removes the plank from the top of the chimney, 
the boys somewhere close by in hiding enjoying the 
poor woman's discomfiture. 

She always laid it to Seth, and nine times out of ten 
he was the guilty party, and if he told us we would 
not tell on him, for mother always whipped him and 
he said when she whipped one evil spirit out she 
whipped in two worse than the last, and we had heard 



My Brother Seth 55 

so much of spirits good and bad that we were afraid 
of them, and besides he was bad enough. 

This old woman had a great black cat named 
Tommy. She prized him more than some persons do 
a more valuable possession. The boys had a special 
dislike to Tommy, for he was some like his mistress, 
very irritable and only a little teasing set him to spit- 
ting. 

Well, one winter Tommy came up missing, and the 
woman accused the boys of making way with him. 
But for once they were not in fault, for when 
spring began to put in his appearance and wood began 
to run low in the little shed, there lay Tommy stark 
and stiff, crushed flat. He had gone under a pile to 
catch a mouse and the pile had settled and the poor cat 
had been put out of the way of teasing boys. He was 
brought out and we all took a farewell look at him 
before he was consigned to a grave in his mistress's 
garden. But few were the tears we shed because he 
was laid low. 

Father always took the boys to prayer meeting. I 
do not know why he did it. They did not want to go 
and got very little if any benefit from going. But they 
had to go. That was a part of their education and 
bringing up. Most children in that day received a 
full and complete training in that line and we were no 
exception. Well one night when dear old Aunt Sally 
McDale was praying in her feeble, quavering voice 
and the prayer continued longer than usual, Seth 
reached over and touched her — not very gently — with 
a pin. The poor old lady was very much startled and 



56 Fortune's Wheel 

screamed aloud. My eldest brother was a very differ- 
ent boy from Seth, but this was more than he could 
stand and keep quiet, so he laughed outright. 

I shall not stop to excuse or conde'mn, everything 
has its price. 

Father got up from his knees and taking the boys j 
with him went quietly out and home. He did not 
mention their conduct that night, but considered it 
and no doubt prayed over it during the night. 

The next morning both boys were whipped, one for 
doing the mean trick and the other for his encourage- 
ment of wrong-doing by laughing. 

My eldest brother never quite forgave father for 
this what he considered unjust punishment. 

My eldest brother finally finished school. He could 
read, write and cipher some, and knew a little about 
geography, that was an easy branch to teach in the 
olden time, the question was there and so was the 
answer too, and stupid indeed was the boy or girl who 
could not learn when things were made so plain. 

He knew all this so quit school forever and went to 
work in the paper mill. 

Perhaps it was just as well. He did not live to see 
his twentieth birthday, and I have reason to believe the 
teaching is better on the other side and when I meet 
him he will tell me it was all for the best. 

If I were making up a story I should leave out much 
that I have said, but as this is a true narrative I must 
continue and tell how Seth was cured of one habit he 
was getting into. 

My eldest brother came in one day and going 



My Brother Seth 57 

straight to a shelf over the bed in the room where 
these two boys slept, took down some thread and three- 
cornered needles and bringing them out said to mother : 
" Seth came to the mill to-day and after he was gone 
we had occasion to use these articles and they were 
gone, and I knew pretty well where to find them." 

You see, in those days, boys made all their own 
balls. They would ravel out old stockings and socks 
and wind them into a hard ball, then get an old boot- 
leg and make a cover and sew it on. There was a 
pattern for ball covers in every house where there 
• were boys. 

Seth saw those three-cornered needles and that stout 
thread, and knew they were just the things for ball 
making and took them. 

Nothing came from this for the things were back in 
their place soon after being taken. But once he came 
near getting into jail, and that put an end to his thefts. 

A large boy came to him one day and said a druggist 
there had sent him to Ogden's for bottles and asked 
Seth to go along. 

In that day bottles were not so plentiful as now, and 
every one we could get was worth its price in coppers 
or candy, just which we pleased to take. They could 
always be sold. 

The boy had a large bushel basket, and together they 
went to the great house in quest of bottles. 

The steward said they had a great many waste bot- 
tles and the druggist could have them, and he filled 
their basket. But instead of going to the druggist, 
the boy stopped at the river and began cleaning the 



58 Fortune's Wheel 

bottles, and then told Seth it was one of his schemes 
to get a little pocket money. Those Ogdens did not 
want those bottles and they might as well have the 
money they would bring. 

Isaac Ogden had a shrewd man at the head of affairs 
and he began thinking over the affair, and it ended in 
his driving over to see the druggist and then found 
out the fraud which had been committed. The boys 
were both arrested. Seth only escaped because he 
belonged to a respectable family and we were never 
known to do such things. The other boy was con- 
victed and sent to Canton jail for six months. 

This lesson cured him entirely and that was the end 
of his thefts. 

. I do not mean that that cured him of his mischief. 
That was born in him and was just as natural to him 
as breathing. No person, old or young, escaped him 
if he got a chance to play a prank on them. 

He got into all sorts of rough and tumble fights, and 
once came home with his arm broken, but that only 
stopped him for a few days. 

Once when mother sent him to the river to gather 
drift wood — that was one of the economical ways of 
thrifty housewives in that day — he went over to 
Canada and visited father's people several days, and 
when he returned he brought in a large armful of 
wood, hoping to propitiate mother. But mother's 
spirit was not easily propitiated, and that night when 
Seth had gone to bed and was sleeping the restful 
sleep of the innocent, mother went up with her strap 
and punished him severely. 



My Brother Seth 59 

But it did no good. His spirit was not to be 
broken that way, and all the whippings, only made him 
worse. 

Sorrow would break his heart some day and lay his 
spirit low, and through the valley and shadow he would 
walk and reflect over the past and commune with God. 
Till then let us say good-bye to him, knowing that 
everything has its price and the day will surely come 
when all those who are in debt must come and pay what 
they owe. 



CHAPTER VI 

MY PLACES OF RESIDENCE 

It seems to me, in looking back over my childhood, 
that some people, even in those days, had more chil- 
dren than they wanted or knew what to do with. 

We, in our family, must have had more than we 
wanted, and the question of what to do with them was 
settled by sending some of us, in turns, to live with 
relatives, or friends, who had either none, or not 
enough, of their own. 

Father. had a sister living in a distant part of the 
state who had no children, but that did not lessen her 
ability to rear children for other folks. In fact, she 
knew better how to manage children — " other folks' " 
— than as though she had had a dozen of her own. 

Her husband must have been a sort of *' all round 
man," as we would say nowadays. He could turn 
his hand to almost any kind of work or business. In 
summer he was engaged in market gardening and 
poultry raising; kept bees and cows, and as the pro- 
ducts of these various branches of agriculture had to 
be taken to market, there v/as a horse too. In winter, 
when nature took on her mantle of snow and slumbered 
for months in the embrace of the " Storm King," he 
busied himself with sawing lumber in his own little 

60 



My Places of Residence 6i 

old-fashioned mill ; one of the long saw kind. The 
saw stood upright and was propelled by water power. 

This style of mill, like many other primitive appli- 
ances beneficial to mankind in their day, has long since 
faded out of use in the more advanced parts of our 
broad domain. 

Much to the delight of the girls in our family, a 
girl was of no use at all in this family. But a strong, 
sturdy boy, one who could nearly do a man's work 
during the day, and then run errands and do chores 
until dark night put an end to honest work, was just 
the thing wanted, so one of ours had to go. Of course 
it fell on Seth, the black sheep in our flock. 

This was not the first time by any means that Seth 
had been sent to live with some family that wanted a 
sturdy boy, and, as in former experiences, he did not 
remain long. 

The families who wanted him, always wanted him 
twice. First, they wanted him to come. Second, they 
wanted him to go home again ; and, as second thought 
is sometimes final, he usually never returned when sent 
home as '* not wanted." 

They say one has to knock against the world in order 
to rub off the rough corners, but in the case of Seth, 
after his return we always felt — that the corners — in- 
stead of being rubbed off were sharpened considerably. 

He must have made things lively for this childless 
man and woman, as well as for the other living things 
around the place ; for when he came home he brought 
a letter, setting forth a long list of grievances ; telling 
how he only half milked the cows, stirred up the bees, 



62 Fortune*s Wheel 

treated the poor horse meanly, and when set to work 
in ,the mill, managed to get under the saw and was 
injured severely. There were three fri^8:htful gashes 
in his back, the scars of which he carried to his grave. 

The letter ended by saying: if we had a different 
boy, a better boy, in our family he would be taken on 
trial, but Seth was not wanted any more. 

Then our eldest brother was sent. They must have 
Hked him better for he remained there a long time. 
One evening the following summer when we were all 
in 'for the night the door opened and in he walked, and 
walking across the living room entered the hall and sat 
down on the bottom stair step, and being overcome 
with emotion, burst into tears. 

That bottom step might have been called the " place 
of tears," for it was there we always went to cry, and 
that step," if it could have talked, could have told many 
a tale confided to it, of hopes defeated ; of plans laid 
low, or punishment borne, by strap or whip. And too 
some tears were shed there over departed loved ones, 
gone to the other side ; where God *' shall wipe away all 
tears." I am glad it says " all tears " for there are so 
many kinds. 

My brother never went back. These people had 
never had any children, and consequently did not un- 
derstand children, and their childhood had been but 
a poor, cramped thing at best, and that long, long ago, 
when child life must have been a struggle between hope 
and despair. Hope for the time to come when they 
would be emancipated from the iron hand that held 
them as in a vise, despair that physical development is 



My Places of Residence 6;^ 

so slow, for to a child die years between five and fifteen 
are almost interminable. 

My first experience with being sent away from home 
to live with other folks was when I was a very young 
child, so young I cannot remember much of the jour- 
ney there. I know it was summer and we drove a horse 
and had some kind of wheeled vehicle. It was miles 
and miles down the St. Lawrence river and the family's 
name was Sutton. 

This whole family run to single blessedness, none of 
them were ever married and there had not been a child 
in the family for years and years. 

The eldest daughter was subject to fits and one was 
liable to come upon her in one any time. She had a 
ghastly look and I was afraid of her. 

The next girl, about forty years old, had a peculiar 
way of winking. . She would wink rapidly several times, 
then hold her eyes steady for a time, then wink rapidly 
again. I would watch her and wonder how she did it. 
Each member of this family had some peculiarity 
that annoyed me. I think I liked the mother best, 
a quiet little woman who spent most of her life in an 
unfinished chamber. There was a loom there and she 
spent her time and talent in weaving cloth of different 
designs. I would creep away from the rest and mount 
the stairs and sit by her side for hours, and watch 
the shuttle fly backward and forward. There were 
other weavers in the old unfinished chamber, weavers 
who spun their own thread as they needed it for 
use and hung their webs wherever they felt sure of 
securing a victim. I would watch these innocent vie- 



64 Fortune's Wheel 

tims struggling in the spider's web and feel sorry, for 
I had begun to think that I, too, was caught and would 
never get away. 

The beautiful river was there but a few rods from 
the back door ; but the water was swift and treacherous 
and I could not play in it. I would sit on the bank 
under an apple tree and watch the steamers going up 
and down and mourn because my home was on this 
stream and I so far away from it, so far away from all 
I loved in life. Oh, that unhappy time ! 

These people were building a barn that summer, and 
one of the men fell from the roof and was injured so 
severely that he lay unconscious in a darkened room, 
and they feared he would die. 

Then the neighbors would drop in, in the evening, 
and they, the family, would tell how they had been 
expecting this calamity for they had had a warning, 
a light was seen by some member of the family, a light 
that gave warning of sorrow to come. And this 
loosened the tongues of the others and many a tale 
went the rounds of ghostly warning, of Jack-o-lanterns, 
and will-o-the-wisps and lights which burnt but never 
went out. 

I worried all the time for fear the sick man would 
die, for well I knew that if he did die spirits would 
hold high carnival so long as the dead body lay in the 
house, and they were liable to return again and again, 
to haunt members of the family after the burial and I 
hoped and even prayed that the injured man would 
recover and to my great relief my prayer w^as an- 
swered. But during the whole time I was about as 



My Places of Residence 65 

miserable as a little highstmng, careless child could 
well be. 

After what seemed months of sojourning with this 
family, there was one of those quarterly meetings, 
which the Methodists have always held, somewhere in 
a little church not far down the river. The family went 
and took me along, never once thinking that this 
very quarterly meeting v/ould be the means of loosen- 
ing the shackles which bound me a prisoner with them. 

We went in and were seated near the front where 
we could hear what the minister said, and then it was 
considered more devout to be near the front, and we, 
being a very devout family — the girl who winked so 
strangely was sanctified — I have seen her on her knees 
for hours together in prayer — of course must be up 
near the front. 

I have always possessed a goodly amount of fe- 
male curiosity. It must have been developed very 
early in life, for at this tender age I was anxious to 
see what was going on around me. And too, as we 
had entered the church I had seen a little girl with 
bright black eyes and long ringlets, she was dressed in 
embroidered pantalets and petticoats, and on her head 
there was a hat with bugles dangling about with every 
move she m.ade; but I had been hurried by as though 
the sight of so much finery would damage my soul's 
eternal welfare. I wanted to see her again and began 
looking around, and oh, joy never to be forgotten, there 
was my father sitting in a big square pew right by the 
pulpit. I nearly screamed aloud for he was looking 
at me with his dear kind smile just as I always re- 



66 Fortune's Wheel 

member him. The Httle g^irl vanished from my mem- 
ory, the long niglit of waiting was drawing to a close 
and a beautiful light dawned on me. 

When the meeting broke up he came ' and took me 
up in his arms and kissed me. I never let go of him 
but clung to his hand all day. That night we stayed 
somewhere and there was a long season of prayer, 
and when it was ended I was on my knees by father's 
chair fast asleep, still clinging to his hand. The next 
day he went home and I went too. I would not let 
him go without me. 

I remember the journey home, the s\yiftly flowing 
river, the boat and father rowing, the little islands 
which we passed, and the sight of the dear village 
where was home and the childrenr whom I loved. 

It was late in the day when we touched at the little 
wharf and father helped me out, and together, hand in 
hand, we climbed the hill home. I always remember 
the days spent with father as days good to be remem- 
bered. 

My mother's youngest sister was married to a 
minister many years her senior. 

He had been married before and had several chil- 
dren. Two sons were older than the young wife whom 
he had chosen. 

But my aunt was one of those determined characters 
one was apt to meet with forty years ago, and had the 
man been older and the family larger I think, judging 
from mv experience with her— she would have under- 
taken the management of his household just the same. 

She was a very determined woman. I suppose it 



My Places of Residence 67 

run in the family too, for our mother was very deter- 
mined, and once her mind was made up there was no 
way (;f convincing her to the contrary, and my aunt 
not being responsible for what run in the blood, was 
very decided anrl determined. Yr>u see she could not 
liclp it, and the social condition was such at that time 
that people acted natural, and what they really were 
was evident to the eyes of beholders, even the eyes 
of small children. 

Perhaps people did not have so many things to 
cover up in those days ; anyway what one was inside 
showed itself plainly on the outside, too. 

I understood my aunt's determined character for I 
lived there off and on for several years. I can just 
remember when she was married and the dress of 
bright Scotch plaid she wore still remains a fixture in 
my memory. Can remember very distinctly how she 
looked standing at his side, at one end of our parlor — 
the man so tall and she so little and young — he was 
forty-six and she seventeen years old. None but a 
very determined woman would ever have undertaken 
the management of this man and his five motherless 
children, three sons and two daughters. 

But their domestic affairs difl not remain long as 
they were, for soon after my aunt went there to man- 
age a great change took place. She was not wholly to 
blame for it all, for the natural order of human events 
was at the bottom of some of it, though I think she 
hurried some of the events. The eldest son married; 
the youngest daughter died; and the eldest daughter 
was sent away to school. 



68 Fortune's Wheel 

The second son was a tall, slender youth, not very 
robust in health, and had the reputation of looking like 
his dead mother. 

Perhaps this was the reason my aunt disliked him 
so ; for she did dislike him, and all these things happen- 
ing in the days when things were not covered up, her 
dislike was visible to any one living in the family ; 
whether outsiders ever knew it 1 cannot tell, as no one 
ever confided such suspicion to me, a little child at 
that time. 

The youngest son was my aunt's idol, the pride of 
her heart. He was a handsome youth, had deep blue 
eyes, dark curling hair, firm white flesh, and alto- 
gether was a decidedly fine looking lad, and my aunt 
loved him. He was never in the way and often went 
with her to church and other public places, and seemed 
like a devoted younger brother. I do not believe there 
were more than five years difference in their ages. 

I have reason to remember both these young men 
for they were at home during a part of my sojourn in 
that household ; for when a child came to live there and 
the eldest daughter was in school and the youngest 
dead, and no one could spare the time to tend the child 
I was sent there to " mind it." 

At this time my aunt has been married some time, 
and I was eight years old. 

Life is measured by experience, not by years ; and I 
thought I was quite an aged person, for I was getting 
plenty of experience living in, different families. Here 
in this household I was taught to work. I had never 
in my short life done anything but play, go to school 



My Places of Residence 69 

and live with other folks. I had not worked, I had 
just lived with them. 

Now a new life opened before me. I was made to 
wash the dishes v/hen I was so small that I had to 
have a stool to stand on beside the sink. I washed and 
prepared the vegetables, blacked stoves, dusted and 
made beds, and did all kinds of room work; run on 
errands and tended the child when my tasks were 
ended and not before. 

My aunt knew every person in her village, and for 
miles around in the country too. Her husband's posi- 
tion opened a wide field for knowing people and she 
took advantage of it. 

I was sent on errands everywhere. A minister's 
wife has more liberty than most women, and more 
persons respond to their solicitations. I do not know 
why. A minister who is paid for his services should 
not ask more, and beside there are so many in the 
world who need all that can be given. Perhaps the 
ministers do not know every " hook and crook " in 
their domestic affairs. I am sure that my uncle did 
not know that I was sent for milk and butter, fresh 
eggs and early vegetables among so many of his coun- 
try parishioners. He was a large hearted man, gen- 
erous to a fault, and his salary was sufficient for the 
wants of his family, and there was no need for aunt's 
bickerings. 

But she was a determined woman, determined to do 
just as she pleased and she pleased to do many things 
which annoyed me, for I was the instrument in her 
hands for carrying out her plans. Seldom a day 



yo Fortune's Wheel 

passed, when the snow was off the ground, that I was 
not seen on the road trudging along with pail or 
basket in hand, bound on a begging expedition. This 
does not sound elegant, but it is true and many times 
truth has an ugly look. 

Perhaps this is the reason I have had such an 
aversion to working in ''Ladies' Aid" societies all my 
life — a year is the longest I ever worked in one and 
could never be induced to try again. 

I did so much church work as a child I got a distaste 
for it. 

My life at this place was not all shadow. Light 
played an important part too. There was a large river 
running through this town, but it was not the grand 
St. Lawrence and though I loved this it could never 
take the place of that. There were dams built across 
this river but the water rushed over them with a sullen 
roar, and we looked upon them as good places to keep 
away from. 

We knew that once upon a time a boat with seven 
children in it -had got adrift above the lower dam 
and was drawn into the current and carried over and 
the children were all drowned. This served to keep 
us away from above the dams. But below the water 
was shallow and the bottom all rock, and many an hour 
have I spent there. Some girl would come for me and 
if I had my work done aunt would let me go and to 
the river we usually went and waded and bathed and 
built forts out of the stones, for the water was full of 
them. We enjoyed these sports as only children of 
narrow resources knew how to enjoy. I have loved 



My Places of Residence 71 

the rippling murmur of running water all my life; for 
the first thirteen years of my Hfe were spent where 
that sound was always to be heard in the summer time. 

I went to school too, but not regularly. Went when 
my tasks were ended and not before. 

But we always went to church and Sunday school. 
Being the minister's family it was important that we 
be present, and in our sweetest mood. 

This was my first experience of living in a family 
where books played an important part. My aunt was 
not a woman of education though, and I often wonder 
now why this man chose her. She could not have been 
any help to him. But I suppose love blinded him as 
it has many another. 

I cannot remember when I learned to read, I think 
I must have known how before I found this life, for 
books have always charmed me and since a little child 
I could read and understand books away beyond my 
years. 

My uncle, a man of wide education, had a fine li- 
brary, and I could read the books any time when my 
tasks were done. This was a great joy to me. 

And then my uncle's family knew and visited the 
best families, and of course I knew them too, and often 
went with my aunt to take tea with some family of 
consequence. 

There was a musical instrument — a melodeon — in 
the house too, and once when the eldest daughter was 
home on a visit she taught me to play a tune by note. 
The tune was Greenville and run this way mi, mi, ra, 
do, do, etc. I guess a good many beginners in music 



72 Fortune's Wheel 

have struggled with that tune. Thus lights began to 
play upon my life though it all seemed so dark to me 
a little child so far away from home. 

A little circumstance happened at the breakfast table 
one morning that fixed the handsome young man in 
my memory, and though years and years have' passed 
away I can recall his face any time. 

I had been told all my life that little girls should be 
seen and not heard, but here the conviction was forced 
upon me that actions do speak and louder than words. 

We had always had our syrup on the table in a bowl, 
and there had been a spoon to dip it with. But one 
morning aunt put it on in a small pitcher, and I 
reached over and took the pitcher and turned some of 
the syrup on my cake, and not knowing what to do 
with the drop that persisted in hanging to the pitcher, 
lifted it" up and touched it with my tongue, and the 
drop disappeared. But looking across the table I 
saw a pair of deep blue eyes fastened on me, the whole 
face expressing astonishment, anger and disgust. 

There was no word spoken but I used my knife 
after that to remove the drop, and learned that there 
was a power in silence greater than all the tongue 
lashings I could have had. 

I usually stayed at aunt's about three months, then 
some one from home would come on a visit and I 
would set up such a crying to go home that I usually 
went, and my sister two years older would be sent in 
my place. When I v/ould get home I would tell the 
stories I had read, and sing my tune, and was consid- 
ered a very superior person. 



CHAPTER VII 

UNCLE WILLIAM 

My Uncle William was a Scotchman, and so well 
represents a class of men who flourished fifty years 
ago that he deserves more than a passing notice. 

He had married my mother's eldest sister, and must 
have liked the family he married into, for he lived on 
a lot so near the old homestead that only a wide lane 
separated them, and we children ran in and out of his 
house as freely as we did our own, and became about 
as well acquainted with Uncle William and his methods 
as we were with our own mother. 

I can just remember my Aunt Martha, I was named 
for her and I suppose that is the reason I remember her 
at all. 

There had been eight children in the family, but in 
the little grave yard vv^here the pines keep vigil my 
aunt was sleeping, and beside her two children, Johnny 
aged nine years and Effie only three months old. 
When we went to the cemetery we always stopped at 
their little plot of ground to see the stones and read 
the inscriptions thereon. 

On my aunt's were these words : " Sacred to the 
memory of Martha J., who departed this life May 28th, 
18 — , aged thirty-six years, seven months and eighteen 
days." There was a hand and the index finger point- 

73 



74 Fortune's Wheel 

ing upward while underneath were these words " My 
home is yonder." 

A Httle monument with a redining lamb on top 
marked the other graves, these words 'were chiseled 
there : '* He gathers them like lambs to His fold." 

When my aunt departed this life, Mary, her eldest 
daughter, took up the burden of the household together 
with the care of a six-weeks' old baby girl ; this was a 
heavy task for she was only fourteen years old. But 
young girls in those days were all taught to work and 
she had been no exception to the rule. 

Six weeks later the baby followed the mother, and 
it was well for no little child can sleep so sweetly as 
beside its mother. 

My aunt being dead the whole duty of rearing the 
children devolved on Uncle William, and he was equal 
to the task. His methods were so forcible that no 
child, large or small, could fail to understand them, 
and they always worked Hke a charm. 

If you search for the quintessence of goodness or bad- 
ness you will be sure to find it in small individuals. 
Nature has a way of making reparation, if she takes 
out of the physical she is sure to add to the spirit, and 
in Uncle William's case the spirit was equal to any- 
thing; for it w^as a giant imprisoned in a small form 
and always struggling to be liberated, and when the 
spirit gained the upper hand Uncle William was lost 
to sight and a very demon of fury seemed to be let 
loose in the neighborhood. He had a round bald head, 
steel blue eyes that seemed to look right through one, 
and a set determined expression on his face, that said 



Uncle William 75* 

as plainly as words could that the heavens might fall, 
but he would never be turned from his purpose. 

He had a short, broad nose that must have annoyed 
him, for there were two damp streaks on his upper lip 
nearly all the time, and he had acquired a peculiar way 
of snuffing-. He seldom used a handkerchief, he said 
it was a senseless thing for a man to blow his nose 
in a cloth and snuffing was good enough for him; it 
might annoy some people but he did not care for that ; 
what annoyed some people was a comfort to others, 
and he should keep right on snuffing. 

I asked mother once what made Uncle William 
snuff his nose in that emphatic way, and she replied 
it is a sure sign of a smart man to have a troublesome 
nose, and from that on I looked upon him as a very 
clever man, for children usually believe what their 
m.other says. 

There must have been a great deal of good in him 
too, for with all his peculiarities — I will not say faults 
— his family were better fed, clothed and housed than 
nine-tenths of the people in the village. The yard 
was beautifully kept and there were quantities of 
flowers growing in his garden that were always tended 
by his own hand. But there were things going on in 
that yard sometimes that completely destroyed its 
beauty, things that disturbed the neighborhood and 
made us all think unkindly of the man whose spirit 
overmastered reason and good sense. 

His youngest son, a tiny child, was very mischievous 
and often got into scrapes and came home with soiled 
and torn clothes or other evidences of fights he had 



76 Fortune's Wheel 

engaged in, and many a time have I seen Uncle Wil- 
Ham fall on him and kick him all over the yard, the 
other children never daring to say a word, but we 
would set up such a screaming it usually brought 
some of the women on the street to the rescue of the 
motherless child. 

If Uncle William ever repented of these outbursts 
of temper no one knew it but himself and God, for 
he never mentioned his faults or failings. 

Once this unfortunate little boy got possession of 
a fishing rod and line and went off with some boys tc 
" First Creek " to fish. But while there they got into 
a fight, and during the fray his hook was, in some 
unaccountable way, drawn through his cheek so that 
the point and barb were drawn into his mouth and 
they could not remove it. This frightened them. 
Then they cut the line short and sent him home, and 
a sorry looking little boy he was. Tears had trickled 
down his cheeks plowing furrows through the dust, 
and the string hanging down and the hook fastened 
through his cheek all combined to make his appearance 
one of abject misery. 

It was just at the supper hour — things went with 
clock-like precision in that household — and the family 
were gathering around the table when this sorry look- 
ing object entered the room. 

If his mother had been living or the large boys a 
little larger, perhaps the rest of this story would not 
be written by me. 

But he was only a little helpless boy in the hands of 



Uncle William 77 

a cruel, relentless father, and he was made to sit right 
down at the supper table. 

The blessing was duly asked : Uncle William spread 
the bread with butter, as he always did for this child, 
then told him to eat. 

Of course the pain was very great and the child ex- 
cited and full of fear, knowing that when the supper 
ended he would be punished further and his tears be- 
gan to flow. 

We had seen him coming home and were there as 
soon as he was, and all stood round to see what would 
happen, and when the man was really going to make 
the child eat without removing the hook it was more 
than we could endure so we ran for the wife of the 
Scotch tailor. 

Uncle William was not afraid of our mother, she 
could say enough but she was only a sister-in-law, but 
the other woman ; he seemed to have some kind of fear 
of her — perhaps it was because she was Scotch and 
he understood the Scotch temperament — any way in a 
few minutes she entered the room. She was a large 
woman and could talk accordingly, and was not long in 
convincing Uncle William of the error of his ways 
and of the law for cruelty to children which she would 
employ if that child were not treated humanely im- 
mediately. 

The child was taken from the table the hook re- 
moved, then he was bathed and put into his night- 
gown and put into bed, and he was not punished 
further either. 



78 Fortune's Wheel 

We must not let our sympathies run away with us 
in favor of this Httle boy for at times he was very 
naughty. 

We had a baby brother still wearing dresses and 
petticoats, and sometimes when the gate would be 
left open by accident he would get out and run .away, 
and every time this little boy found our baby away 
from home he would catch him and take off every 
garment he had on, then roll them into a bundle and 
put them in his hand and send him home; and such a 
funny looking little object he was running home as 
fast as his little legs would carry him. 

We never complained to Uncle William, the poor 
child had such a hard time we would not add to it by 
complaining on him. 

Uncle William was a devout church member, and 
he and his family were always in their place on Sun- 
day morning in the little red brick church to which 
he belonged. In that church people were seated ac- 
cording to their piety, and Uncle William's seat was 
second from the front and ours third. This showed 
to the worshipper there, that Uncle William was a very 
little more devout man than our father, a thing we 
could not believe — we knew he was more to be feared 
but that he was better than father was a thing we 
could not believe. 

We had one thing to comfort us, and that was that 
Aunt Sally McDale's seat joined ours, and she was a 
very sweet Christian woman, and what was good 
enough for her was for our father too. And the third 



Uncle William 79 

seat back was not so far away after all, and in those 
days there was not much looking around to see the 
new styles. The styles did not change often and when 
once acquainted with the members of any church one 
was sure to know the garments worn, for each had a 
first best and it lasted many years. 

Uncle William was the class leader for years, and 
I seem to see him now going from one member to 
the other and asking them in turn to rise and testify 
as to what the Lord was doing for their soul ; after 
the response he would give each in turn some word of 
encouragement or advice and so go the rounds. 

There was a blessing asked at his table before each 
meal, and family prayer both morning and night, 
that over, he seemed to have done his entire religious 
duty to his family. 

I cannot remember once in all my childhood a word 
of love or tender compassion between this man and 
his children. 

Sunday was a strange day in that household. Uncle 
William was dressed in his best suit with a starched 
shirt and high collar and wide black cravat, but he 
never wore a long sanctimonious face. He could not 
have done it, if he had tried, for nature had fashioned 
him with a short round face, and he wore his beard 
shaved to the end of his chin and left a little rim of 
whiskers reaching from ear to ear. This gave him the 
appearance of having a round face accentuated, so his 
sanctimony could never get to the long- face kind. 

But he would sit there among his children during 



8o Fortune's Wheel 

those dreary Sunday afternoons with that set deter- 
mined look that must have nearly driven his children 
wild. 

And those children, what days those must have been 
for them. No books to read, no pictures to look at, 
and nothing to do but wait until the day was done. 

It was worse for those children than for Uncle 
Willliam, for they had inherited a double dose of spirit, 
and it was next to impossible for them to keep quiet. 

Their mother had been our mother's sister, and they 
had inherited a lively spirit from her, for all of 
mother's people were of that strong-headed, deter- 
mined sort that must have their way or die in the 
attempt, and no one could live under Uncle William's 
roof and not come under his domination, and those 
children being his children took after him — it was 
natural they could not help it — and they were spirited 
creatures. The neighborhood knew it if Uncle Wil- 
liam did not, and when his back was turned and they 
were let loose every one on the street came in for a 
share of their practical jokes; though many times they 
went beyond jokes. 

Sometimes they would get hold of some poor, in- 
nocent, half-developed country bumpkin from the 
back woods of Canada who had come over to the states 
in search of work, and woe betide the man ! what little 
wits he had were soon gone. 

I remember one fellow of this kind they got hold of 
one winter. 

Uncle William was gone from home on some busi- 
ness, and it being a fine opportunity for fun they 



Uncle William 8i 

could not resist it, and so they took the poor fellow 
in out of pure compassion for the night. 

They sat around the fire and told ghost stories until 
the poor fellow was nearly frightened to death, then 
they put him up stairs to sleep in a room alone. Dur- 
ing the story telling one of the boys went up and 
arranged the room. 

He fastened a tiny bell under the bed having a long 
string attached to it ; then hung up an old hoop skirt 
with a lighted lantern underneath and a dark skirt over 
all ; this arrangement could be lowered or raised having 
a long string attached to it, and running through a 
hook overhead could be moved at the will of the 
person holding and using the string. 

When all was ready they got him off to bed, the 
boys sleeping in a large room adjoining, and of course 
they left the door ajar. 

Not long after the poor fellow had gone to bed he 
heard a strange noise and a dark object rose up and 
a light appeared. He was very much frightened and 
hid under the quilts. Then the bell began to tingle 
and the light seemed to dance, and this was more than 
the poor fellow could endure, and jumping out of bed 
he seized his clothes in his hand and rushed out of 
the house not stopping to dress and came to us for 
the night. It was a bitterly cold night and the poor 
fellow was nearly frozen. 

The next day he left our village feeling that those 
boys were too much for him, and we saw him no 
more. 

It was their especial delight to get hold of some 



82 Fortune's Wheel 

stray dog, coax him up, then fasten an old tin tea 
kettle to his tail and then go nearly wild with laughter 
to see the poor dog run, and they seldom got hold of 
the same one twice. Once coming in contact with them 
was enough for man or beast. They played all kind 
of pranks on us, and many a time if it had not been 
for Seth we would have suffered at their hands. 

Seth was made of their kind of fibre and they usually 
handled him with gloves on. 

One Sunday evening in winter when there was a 
fierce storm blowing Uncle William went to church 
alone, leaving the children at home to the tender 
mercies of their own inclination, and this time they 
inclined to make molasses candy. 
. No sooner was Uncle William's back turned than 
they got out the kettle and put the molasses on to 
boil, and when it was done they turned it on a platter 
to cool, but they hearing a step and fearing it might 
be their father hastily ran out the back door and set the 
platter in the snow just as he came in. 

The storm was so fierce and there were but few out, 
and those mostly old ladies who would have trouble 
getting home in the drifts, they had decided to not 
have meeting and so he had come home. 

They had a little dog named Fido. He was just the 
tiniest kind of a dog, not large enough for anything 
but to get into mischief. And when Uncle William 
went in Fido ran out and soon set up as big a howl as 
could come from such a small throat. 

Of course Uncle WilHam went to see what was the 
matter with the dog, for his cry was one of distress, 



Uncle William 83 

and found that he had run his nose into the hot candy 
and it was sticking fast, and he was howling accord- 
ingly. 

The platter was brought in and the candy put into 
the stove; family prayers were attended to and then 
the children were sent to bed, no word being spoken 
about the candy. It was the holy Sabbath evening 
and no time to discuss unholy things. 

The next morning after prayer the entire family 
were punished, and no one knew better how to whip 
than Uncle William. 

You see those were the days when a little child's 
back might be broken, but the Sabbath could not be 
bent. I cannot remember the two girls in this family 
ever playing at all. 

Mary, the eldest, took the mother's place and sat at 
the head of the table ; poured the tea and dished the 
sauce just as the mother would have done. The other 
daughter helped about the house and went to school. 

There was no house in that village better kept. 
Things were always in order. 

The house was well furnished. I remember a cup- 
board where a tea set of pure old china was kept, 
a snowy cloth was always on the table and good things 
to eat. 

The only skeleton at the feast was that grim, silent 
man. I never saw him smile. Perhaps he was mourn- 
ing for his dead wife. 

Uncle William's boys sowed their wild oats and 
played their pranks, then settled down into steady men, 
but not until after the Great Rebellion. When that 



84 Fortune's Wheel 

broke out and Uncle Sam needed young men, stout 
of heart and strong of limb, there were none better in 
the land to respond to the call. 

They, if living, are elderly men now, but so far as 
1 ever knew them they not one were ever connected 
with any church. They had had too much of the old 
time forcing children to church. 

The eldest daughter, when her father needed her no 
more, married a rising minister, and I wish I could tell 
you that she lived to do much good in the life she 
had chosen, but real life does not always run that 
way. She lived just one brief year of unalloyed hap- 
piness, then after hours of suffering, such as women 
only know, she and her child slept the sleep that 
knows no waking. 

Uncle William, if living, would be about ninety 
years old, and away back in his boyhood the training 
had been severe, and he being what he was brought up 
to be could not help acting out his nature. 

No doubt he was conscientious and thought he was 
doing his Christian duty by his children. 

The fault in our young day. was we had inherited 
too much spirit, and there was little or no opportunity 
to work it off through a proper channel. If books and 
papers for children had been plentiful as they are 
nowadays our parents would not have had so much 
trouble with us. 

The schools were poor, the text books inferior, and 
there was almost nothing for a child with a lively 
imagination to turn to but mischief. 

If I were writing a story about the educated and 



Uncle William 85 

cultured classes I suppose my story would sound 
differently. But this is a simple tale of what happened 
among the uneducated and common work-a-day 
people in the village where my childhood was passed 
in that long ago. 

It is a story full of light and shadow as all life must 
be whether high or low. 

There were brave men and true in that class even 
if they were not educated. But education would have 
made them better as their posterity are testifying to. 
For what is the present generation ? Just the children 
stepped into father's shoes, and having better advan- 
tage we will be called upon to give a better account 
one of these days. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CHURCHES 

It is Sunday morning in our quiet village. The sun 
is shining overhead, the birds are singing gayly, the 
bees are gathering honey as usual, the river is moving 
on as though exulting in its freedom, and all nature 
rejoices. But we are up stairs lying in bed still. We 
do not care to rise until called this morning. There 
is nothing to get up for, so we think. We cannot do 
anything on this day, not even go outside the garden 
gate nor play at anything. 

There- are a lot of us and we are very restless. Oh, 
why can everything go on in a natural way, excepting 
the lives of little children. We look across at each 
other and occasionally a pillow is thrown, but even 
that must be done so carefully that no suspicion of it 
gets below stairs. 

When mother calls we rise, dress and go down to 
find our breakfast of milk toast ready. After break- 
fast is over and the wife of the Scotch tailor has come 
in and bathed great-grandmother, I go in her room 
and watch the process of her bedmaking. 

Some of the older girls help with the work. When 
that is finished our Sunday clothes are brought out and 
we are made ready for Sunday school and church. 

Father belongs to the Methodist church and there 

86 



Churches 87 

we have to go, and this Sunday school begins at nine 
o'clock. 

It was an excellent arrangement for us for we did 
not like this church nor the Sunday school either, and 
as soon as the church services were over at twelve 
o'clock we ran right over to the Episcopal Sunday 
school which began at that hour. 

We loved the Episcopal Sunday school, the church 
and people too. We did not mean to be naughty, we 
were only a lot of restless, high-spirited children, being 
brought up under the letter of the law with the spirit 
left out, and we were rebelling and trying to make 
things more comfortable for ourselves. 

Little and undeveloped as we were, we thought each 
individual should have an equal chance in the pursuit 
of happiness. 

When this Sunday school closed we went home to 
read and gloat over the books we had taken from that 
library. The Methodists had papers. The Episcopals 
had books. 

Dinner came at two o'clock, and later the Presby- 
terians had their Sunday school and we could all go. 
Mother seemed to think that attendance at church or 
Sunday school was all that was required, and she 
being the dominant factor in our family, let us go. 

Father would have preferred to have us in only one 
church and that the church of his choice. But he did 
not have his way in many things, and to her we were 
indebted for many pleasures through these churches. 

At the Presbyterian Sunday school we each got an- 
other book and walked slowly home. 



88 Fortune's Wheel 

These books were, for the most part, small, and the 
stories inferior, but they were better than none at all, 
and by the time the week was ended we had managed 
to read them all. 

The Methodist church to which my father belonged 
was a little red brick building and had no bell. But 
its members responded to the call of the Episcopal bell, 
which always rung out its cheery tones like a kindly 
summons to all. 

The floor of this church was bare, the pews straight, 
stiff and uncushioned, and there were no little benches 
for comfort to kneel on. 

The windows were of common clear glass and the 
sun shone in with a broad glare. The pulpit was so 
high up on one end, there had to be a flight of steps 
to get up into it. There were two great square pews 
near the pulpit : these were reserved for the most de- 
vout worshipers. 

One of mother's brothers called them " the amen 
corners." I know there used to be much groaning 
heard in their vicinity during those long revivals and 
still longer " watch meetings." We used to think 
those would never end — the watch meetings. 

I think all Methodist churches were built alike 
a half century ago. All I remember were the same. 
Everything was straight, stiff and uncomfortable. 
The flesh was made to be humbled and there was no 
need for anyone to go to church in one of that de- 
nomination, at least for the purpose of resting. 

The preaching was not to our taste in that church 



Churches 89 

either. The sermon was always something about orig- 
inal sin, total depravity, sanctification or judgment 
after death, and we could not understand such things 
then, and could not understand why it was such a sin 
for a little child to enjoy life as the birds and animals 
did; and even the beautiful river seemed happy in its 
place and only people were wrong and must be pun- 
ished. 

This church never gave a picnic nor Sunday school 
party of any kind that I can recall to memory during 
the first ten years of my life, and we did not enjoy 
going there. 

We thought there was nothing to be gained by going, 
no books, no pleasures at all and only a place where 
we were constantly told that all men and little children 
too, were sinners and on the highroad to death and 
judgment to come. 

There was a tiny parsonage behind the church, built 
of the same red brick as the church, and sometimes 
queer people lived there, even if they were preachers 
and preachers' children. 

I have heard some strange things about them, but 
will relate only one circumstance and drop them ; for 
preachers are only men after all. 

There was one minister in my young day whom I 
will call Brother Beebee. He had an invalid wife and 
no children — a very strange thing, for nearly all the 
ministers had more children than other folks did. 
Brother Beebee was a very plain man and always 
dressed in a stout suit of homespun. His hair and 



90 Fortune's Wheel 

beard were thickly sprinkled with grey and his whole JJ 
appearance was that of a plain, common, unassuming 
man with no pride in him. 

Dear sister, Aunt Sally McDale, said to father one 
day, when I was standing by, " Brother Beebee has not 
pride enough. I think he should dress better in the 
pulpit any way." 

Father's reply silenced the argument, " Why Aunt 
Sally, pride is of the devil, now how much of the 
devil do you want in a Methodist preacher?" Aunt 
Sally stood rebuked in the presence of such a convinc- 
ing point as that. 

But a few VN^eeks later the poor invalid v/ife passed 
on, leaving a great void in the life of Brother Beebee. 
• The congregation mourned with him, and fearing 
his robust health might give away under the strain, 
they persuaded him to take a vacation of a few weeks. 
When he returned to his devoted little flock his hair 
and beard were as black as a raven's wing, he was 
dressed in shining broadcloth, and his white shirt front 
stood out as though inviting criticism. Brother Bee- 
bee was a changed man from that on, and there were 
no more complaints that he did not dress well enough. 
In fact he dressed better than his circumstances and 
salary warranted. 

Soon the little congregation were further shocked to 
see him drive out with a span of horses and a fashion- 
able carriage, and before the poor invaHd — who had 
left such a void in his life — had been gone a half year, 
he was inviting the young ladies of his congregation 
to drive with him. This was more than that church 



Churches 91 

could endure, and Brother Beebee was doomed to pass 
on too, and the next year a man with less levity was 
installed in his place. 

A year later he was married to a young and pretty 
girl on the charge where he was sent, the people there 
not being so particular. 

But the Episcopal church, how shall I describe it. 
I guess by doing as Dr. Crow did when he called the 
Episcopal church '' a poem set to music," that describes 
that particular one very satisfactorily to me. 

It was " a poem set to music." First there was a 
long lot enclosed by a neat fence having two gates. 
One could enter the lot close by the church door or 
have the pleasure of the long gravel walk by another 
street. The whole lot was set with trees, some of 
which were flowering trees, and in the spring we loved 
to enter by the long gravel walk under the sweet- 
scented locust. 

The church was built of stone and even they were of 
such a color that there was an inviting look about 
them. The windows were of stained glass and the 
light fell through them softly like a benediction. The 
floor was carpeted with dark crimson carpet, and the 
pews were upholstered with red velvet and there were 
little benches to kneel on for comfort when in prayer. 
I do not see why one should feel like making them- 
selves miserable and uncomfortable while asking a 
favor of " our Father in heaven," and besides it is more 
dignified to kneel up than down. 

There were four chandeliers — to be sure they were 
only lighted by candles, but when they were all lighted 



92 Fortune's Wheel 

up and the light falling on the glass pendants they 
looked very lovely, and candles were the kind of lights 
people had forty years ago. And the whole end where 
the altar was, was all stained glass ; there-was a paschal 
lamb and cross and crov/n and other images gone from 
my memory now. There was an organ loft and choir 
— my first experience with music of any kind other 
than psalm singing was here in this church. There 
was a gallery on either side, and always at Christmas 
the church was beautifully trimmed with evergreen, 
and the great festoons along those galleries looked 
very pretty. Sometimes there would be a choir of 
boys, and they would be robed in white surplices, and 
they looked so angelic and their voices sounded so pure 
and sweet, and altogether, the whole of it — church, 
Sunday school and people were so lovable we could not 
help worshiping them. 

Of course we were told over and over again that it 
was all the works of Satan, but somehow we loved the 
works of Satan when done as in this church. 

Miss Fanny Qgden was my teacher, and she was so 
kind and seemed to understand that childhood was a 
time to rejoice in and did so many things to help make 
my life more beautiful, I could not help loving to go 
there. 

Children love the place or thing that presents an 
attractive side. 

Besides, this church every summer gave a picnic to 
Ogden's island, and they were the first ones to intro- 
duce that greatest of pleasure to childhood, a Christ- 
mas tree. 



Churches 93 

It must have been about this time that Prince Albert 
trimmed one for his children and thus set the fashion 
going in the world, and these dear Episcopal people 
not wishing to be outdone by even royalty, trimmed one 
for their Sunday school too. 

I shall never forget my delight at the very first one. 
It was in a large hall and there was a supper too. 
After we were all ready the curtain was taken down 
and there stood the tree all ablaze with tiny candles 
of different colors. There was pop-corn hanging in 
festoons all over it, and a present and cornucopia of 
candy and nuts for each child. After the supper we 
were all taken home in the big sleigh. These were 
things to remember all one's life, too. 

Perhaps you will understand why we loved to go to 
that church. It was there we got a taste for the good, 
the true, and the beautiful. 

I cannot help what your training has been. God 
wants us all to be happy, and true happiness brings us 
closer to Him who is all good, all true, and all beautiful. 

My father was a member of the Methodist church 
for more than fifty years, and for his dear sake I have 
always given it a warm place in my heart. I have not 
been in an Episcopal church since I was thirteen years 
old, but its influence in helping to mould my charac- 
ter will last through eternity. 

The Presbyterian church was a large, plain building, 
but it had a kindly atmosphere and books for Sunday 
school children, and we loved to go there too. One 
thing I learned in this church that never left my mem- 
ory — that is the map of India. 



94 Fortune's Wheel 

It seems that that church then as now was always 
getting up something both instructive and entertaining, 
and once a man who had been a missionary to India 
gave an illustrated lecture on his life and' work there — 
the church was full for the lecture was free and the 
first thing shown was a map, and the man asked; " Did 
anyone know what that was a map of ? " 

There was a large red-headed boy there who had 
been attending an academy at Potsdam but was at 
home for the summer vacation, and he cried out 
Hindoostan ! I looked at him and thought I had 
rather be that boy and know so much than to be a king 
on a throne. But that map never left my memory, and 
others have been added since but not in the same way 
that one was. 

This church gave an excursion every summer too. 
A steamer would come and take us to some island away 
down the river, or to some place on the Canadian main- 
land, and all together we felt pretty well satisfied to 
belong to this Sunday school. You see we were a 
practical lot trying to get out of life all there was in 
it, and Sunday was such a long day in that long ago. 

Then we had the Catholic church, the largest and 
best attended church in our village. It was the sec- 
ond building from our house. 

But we never went there. We had seen Fox's Book 
of Martyrs and had heard a good deal of the doings 
of that church, ancient and modern, and had heard 
Maria Monks's tale of convent life — that story was 
common household property forty years ago — and 
knew so much — not knowing anything for sure, only 



Churches 



95 



by hearsay — that we had no rehsh for going there, not 
to attend church anyway. We did not beHeve there 
was any good in it. It was all well enough to go 
around the yard on Monday morning or after a funeral 
and pick up any stray coins, shawl pins or anything 
which might have been lost by the crowds that came; 
but as for going there for any good, it was not to be 
thought of. 

We changed our minds once and went out of love 
and respect for a person who will appear in his proper 
place. 

There was one of the clearest toned bells on that 
church in the whole country, and it called people from 
all over the country to come, and they came. For 
these people turn out in greater numbers than in any 
other denomination I know. But such a funny look- 
ing lot as some of them were. There were Biddy Leb- 
bins and her daughter Judy, and old Paddy must not be 
forgotten. Old Granny Pidgeon and her daughter 
Rilley. Patt and Sil Carr and a host such as these, and 
we grew to think that that was the beginning and end- 
ing of it. 

We learned later in life to not judge any great 
movement by a few of its members. 

On Sunday this church resembled a huge bee hive 
with hundreds going in and hundreds coming out, and 
still other hundreds going down a lane that ended near 
the back door of a tavern whose main attraction was a 
bar. and many a one on returning walked unsteady on 
his legs ; and we thought that in all the world there was 
never another such awful church. 



g6 Fortune^s Wheel 

But we were learning things, and finally came where 
we knew there were things to be regretted in other 
denominations, too, and we found that Hfe was only 
Hght and shade, and the brighter the light the darker 
the shadow could be. 

If one has but little light, we must not expect too 
much of the shadow. 

Some of the dearest friends I have ever had belonged 
to and believed in this church, and I long ago lost all 
my prejudice. 



CHAPTER IX 

SKETCHES OF THE NEIGHBORS 

Of course we knew every person in our village ; for 
our great-grandmother was the second settler in the 
village, and her children and children's children had 
the advantage of being among the oldest inhabitants 
and were accorded privileges the newer people did not 
enjoy. 

We knew how much each was worth in this world's 
goods, which church each belonged to, and nearly 
everything pertaining to the personal worth of each 
too, and when the Great Rebellion broke out were not 
surprised that some who had never thought of such a 
thing before moved over into Canada and stayed there 
until it was all over. 

In fact, we like many members of the great body 
social knew as much about our fellow citizens as we 
did about ourselves. We knew when Mariah Mott 
scuffed along in the grass at the side of the walk, that 
she did it to hide the hole in her shoe. No matter if 
she were the daughter of Dr. Mott, the dignified and 
exclusive, his dignity and exclusiveness had not 
brought him good financial returns and his family were 
poor. They carried their heads high, though they were 

97 



98 Fortune's Wheel 

somewhat run down at the heels, and were bound to 
keep up appearances though they had to resort to all 
manner of devices to do it. 

The Motts were not our neighbors, they lived sev- 
eral streets from us, but we knew them and their 
financial and social standing both. 

Financially they were failures, socially they were suc- 
cesses, for the elder Miss Mott had a calling acquaint- 
ance at the manor on the island. 

I do not care who you are nor where you live nor 
in what age, if you have a calling acquaintance with 
the richest person in your village, town or city, you are 
a social success. 

Some things are not changed by time and usage. 

Our nearest neighbors toward the river lived in a 
fine brick house and were people of consequence. 

The only thing which made them our neighbors was 
that their lot joined ours. They never associated 
with us and would not have taken any interest in us 
at all only we children went there frequently to enter 
complaints against their youngest son. He was a 
slender lad of sixteen or thereabouts and was a noted 
character in the village, noted for being death on cats, 
and every child who had a cat or kitten that was 
greatly beloved had reason to remember this big boy. 

I can almost see him now walking toward the center 
of their garden where he buried the cats, he holding 
one by the hind legs, the poor thing hanging head 
downwards and as dead as a door nail. He always 
took the whole nine lives right out of them with his 
method of taking oflf. When he killed our cats we 



Sketches of the Neighbors 99 

would run to the brick house and enter complaints 
against the boy, all to no purpose. They said they were 
not interested in cats and did not wish to be annoyed 
by such forlorn looking children as we were. 

We grew to dislike the tall, dignified lady and 
thought she had no sympathy for dead things. We 
changed our minds before many years went by, when 
we saw this lady seeking the poor and lowly to sym- 
pathize with them over loss by death ; for she had 
been stricken and her heart was broken. 

The Scotch tailor lived just across the street in a 
tiny red house, about sixteen by twenty-four feet, 
covered the entire size. There was a long room, a tiny 
bedroom and pantry and stairway below and one 
room overhead where the children slept. There were 
four small windows in the house and a woodshed at 
the rear covered one, so of course, no light could come 
in through that one, and a person sitting in the living 
room had always an unpleasant recollection of that 
woodshed, where all sorts of odds and ends were 
thrown, for there were no curtains at any of the 
windows. Their only furniture in the living room was 
a cooking stove, a table to eat on, some wooden chairs 
and a cupboard, and a tiny table for the mother to 
sit by to sew. There was not an ornament of any 
kind around the house, and never a cloth on the 
table, and for food they had every day for six days 
in the week tea sweetened with muscovada sugar, and 
baker's bread and butter, nothing else, never at any 
time excepting Sunday, then the mother put over a 
pot and boiled vegetables and made a pudding. 

LofC. 



/ 
V 



lOO Fortune's Wheel 

Their Sunday dinners must have meant many things 
to those children. 

The tailor and his wife never went to church though 
the children were sure to attend one or -two churches 
and Sunday schools. 

I did not understand the cause of their great poverty. 
The tailor worked in a shop on Front street, and the 
mother sewed every day and many times until late at 
night, for she was a tailoress. 

She always had inflammation in her eyes and wore 
a green silk shade to keep the light from them. 

These people were our neighbors in, every sense 
of the term. They spent many an evening sitting 
around our fire. She sewing and listening while the 
tailor and father spun yarns. My mother used to say 
it was cheaper to sit by our fire and bum our candles 
than to do the same thing at home, and many a night 
the tailor would doze off to sleep and mother would 
creep off to bed and father would be obliged to sit there 
and feed the fire until the woman finished a certain 
stint. 

Dear father, his was a kind heart, and though he too 
did not know how to make a fortune he knew how to 
make people happy, and he never missed an oppor- 
tunity. 

I have been told that the Scotch tailor and his wife 
died in the little red house where the children were 
born and grew up, and in fancy I can see them sitting 
by their lonely fireside waiting the last summons, 
he feeble, she both feeble and blind. Both clinging 
to the fond memories of younger years when childish 



Sketches of the Neighbors loi 

voices made merry the lowly home of this man and 
woman, who were poor in everything but human love. 
Then we had a house adjoining the Scotch tailor's 
whose occupants changed ever}' year, and sometimes 
many times during the year. People in those days 
seemed to enjoy moving too, and when they did not 
find the neighbors to their mind moved on and hunted 
up new ones. 

The only things I remember of the people who lived 
in the old house are that they were poor and unedu- 
cated, illy fed and worse clothed, all seemed to have 
a hard time of it trying to keep soul and body together. 
But our next neighbor I remember distinctly. Time 
will not efface her from my memory. 

She was the woman who could not get on with the 
boys. 

( She was tall and thin and had the queerest little 
I yellow spots all over her face — not freckles — they 
I looked as though a charge of bran had been blown 
I into her face and remained there a permanent fixture, 
\ and it gave her a comical look. Her nose was long 
I and thin, her teeth broken and discolored, she smoked 
a pipe and wore a cap with full frills over her ears, 
and altogether her appearance was enough to make 
any boy rebellious, and they could scarcely be blamed 
for playing tricks on her. 

She lived in a tiny cottage having but two rooms, 
one above and one below, and there was a tiny wood- 
shed at one end and this very woodshed helped the 
boys to play many a prank on her, for they could 
easily climb to the top of her low roof from that and 



I02 Fortune's Wheel 

cover her chimney with a plank, or drop stones down, 
or even turn water down and put out her fire. In fact 
they did all kinds of things to worry and annoy her. 

She could neither read nor write, but for all that 
she thought she knew more about law than the Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court. 

She was engaged in laying' it down to the boys so 
much that no wonder she was informed. 

Poor thing, she had her heart trials too. Her hus- 
band was a drunkard and led her a sorry life. But 
then she was a shrew and he got many a hard scolding. 

When the war broke out he was one ,of the first to 
enlist, and not long after his death was reported in the 
paper, and then we felt sorry for her for a time. 

This gave her more liberty to discuss war news, and 
she did it with a vengeance. 

I have seen her on the street after being to the post- 
office — the seat of information in that day — and getting 
her budget of news fairly bursting with intelligence. 

Such a laughable figure as she was, high pitched 
voice rolling opt the murdered king's English, arms 
swinging wildly about, and the whole body partici- 
pating in the excitement which the great occasion 
warranted. 

In this manner she would inform her neighbors of 
the defeat of the Rebels, or the victories of the Union 
soldiers. The boys would gather around to listen and 
form new plans to annoy her. 

There was a tenement house on a lot adjoining ours 
and the people were queer, strange beings who lived 
there. 



Sketches of the Neighbors 103 

Of course in a sketch like this I could not describe 
them very minutely, and will only try to tell a Httle of 
the things which seem to have left the strongest im- 
pression on my young mind. One man by the name / 
of Showen had three daughters and one son. The 
mother was dead and the eldest daughter kept the 
house. 

We used to go there often for we could get right in 
at their back door by going a little way down our 
garden and climbing the fence, and when we were 
there could do much as we pleased, there was no Puri- 
tan spirit to convince us to the contrary. I only liked 
one girl, the rest seemed queer to me. I went there 
for the freedom the house afforded and to play with 
the girl I liked. 

Submit was the name of the eldest, and Dulcia the 
name of the youngest. Submit and Dulcia, what soft 
sounding names. 

I wonder if names do really influence children? 

I have heard or read somewhere that one could tell 
what kind of a person one was just by hearing the 
name. Since I learned this, when I see the name Sub- 
mit in a story I wonder did she drool or have fits, for 
I never saw but two Submits, and one drooled and 
the other had fits. I was afraid of the one that had 
fits, and shrank from the one that drooled. In this 
family the middle girl was named Jane, a good, sen- 
sible sounding name. I liked her but could never 
be induced to play with Dulcia, nor eat the food that 
Submit cooked, for these two girls drooled and I 
kept aloof from them. 



104 Fortune's Wheel 

The summer this family lived in the tenement a show 
came to our village, the first one I can remember so I 
must have been a very small child. The principal at- 
traction was a man who had no arms 'but could write 
with his toes. When I was looking at the curious 
things the showman had gathered together to attract 
people, I wondered why he did not get these girls and 
exhibit them. They were more curious than anything 
he had in his display. They would get interested in 
looking at something and a vacant stare would come 
over their faces, their under jaws would drop, and 
the drool would begin to run, and I would move off. 
I have never in all my life met with another so cur- 
ious a spectacle as they presented. 

Another family who lived in the old tenement had 
fifteen children and none of them were ever allowed 
to eat. at the table until they could earn their own 
living. 

I have seen this family at meals very many times, 
the older ones who could earn their living eating with 
their father and mother, and the younger six or eight 
sitting on the floor in a row with their backs against 
the wall eating what had been given them, and they 
could not have any more either, consequently they 
were a thin and hungry looking lot. All had straight 
white hair, and such a woe begone expression, it fills 
my heart with pity now that such things have ever 
been and are still in the world, little children hungry 
for the bread that perisheth. 

When the war broke out the father of this family 
and the eldest son went at the first call, and when I 



Sketches of the Neighbors 105 

think of the condition of society at that time, little or 
no chance for boys of poor parents to get an education, 
prices away down and work scarce, I do not wonder 
that when President Lincoln issued the call for 
seventy-five thousand that three hundred responded. 
The mother washed, scrubbed and pulled flax, in fact, 
did anything she could get to do to supply the needs 
of her numerous family, and many a time she came 
home drunk, and then the condition of these poor 
children was worse than usual. 

The eldest girl went out to service, the others fol- 
lowed soon, and the younger children, as is the lot of 
all such children, suffered, and then, as now, there 
was no one to lift them up and out of their misery. 

All these things made a deep impression on my 
young mind, and I disliked this class of parents and 
was sorry for the unfortunate children. 

I was always asking these questions. Why are 
people different? What makes Miss Fanny Ogden so 
sweet and lovable, and some of the people with whom 
I am obliged to associate, so loud spoken, so coarse 
in manner, and altogether so unlovable? 

Was it because the good God had made different 
kinds, and if He made different kinds why did he 
make them that wa}^? 

Why did He make me a poor, little, helpless girl, 
having no power to control my circumstances — long 
for the very highest the human is capable of, and still, 
hold me in those fetters. Since a small child I have 
had a restless feeling when in the company of in- 
ferior persons, and have looked up toward the good, 



io6 Fortune's Wheel 

the true and the beautiful, and have longed with an 
intense yearning to be like the sweet, pure, gentle people 
whose influence touched my heart and set me to think- 
ing of things away beyond my sphere and station in 
Hfe. 

Mother always said I was the most unsatisfactory 
child she had, for I was determined to be with superior 
persons whenever I could get with them. She told me 
I ought to be content with my station in life, humble 
though it were. I learned early in life how restless the 
aspiring soul could be. 

Up the street a little way lived Biddy Martin, and 
her " new man," Jimmie Wilson. 

Biddy had been married to Martin longer than to 
Wilson, and so she was called Martin. People could 
not get used to changing her name just because she 
had married another man, and then the children were 
Martin's, and it made it easier for us all to say Biddy 
Martin. 

Biddy was an Irish woman and a Catholic, not one 
of the kind who wear their religion on Sunday and 
dofif it on weeTc days. Biddy's piety was of a deeper 
sort; and she wore her religion like a costly garment 
all the week, moving among her neighbors gently, 
like any good decent Christian should. 

And I believe if it had not been for two elements 
which crept in on Biddy on Sunday, she would have 
been a good Christian on Sunday too. 

But those two elements could not be kept out, so 
long as Catholics are com.pelled to attend mass, and 
men will sell whiskey; people must suffer, and these 



Sketches of the Neighbors 107 

two things were Biddy's undoing: company on Sun- 
day and the whiskey they brought. 

Every Sunday as sure as the day came, a load of her 
friends, or I might better say her acquaintances, not 
friends, would drive in from the country to attend 
mass, and they came fasting and thirsting too. 

After mass they would go home with Biddy to get 
some dinner, and the men — as rum drinking a looking 
set as any one could find — always ran down the lane 
and in at the back end of a saloon, and soon returned 
tottering on their legs carrying the stone jug full of 
whiskey, and went right straight in at Biddy's door. 
Things would be quiet for a time, but as the drink 
began to take effect loud talking would be heard, soon 
cries of distress would mingle in, and before long a 
regular Irish fight would take place, and out into the 
yard the women would run flourishing broomsticks 
or anything they could get hold of, the men after them, 
and a regular melee followed. 

Some of the men on the street — many times Uncle 
WilHam — would interfere and get the noisy drinkers 
out of town. 

Once they carried a man on a bed with a broken 
leg out with them. 

Poor Biddy and her " man " Jimmie, it kept them 
pretty busy during the week to work out their penance 
and get their piety in shape for the next Sunday's 
ordeal. Adjoining the Catholic church yard was a 
rough-cast house having three rooms, two below and 
a low attic above, and here in this dreary abode lived 
three families, one room to each family. 



lo8 Fortune*s Wheel 

\ Patt Carr and his family first, an old cobbler and his 

family second, and in the attic Lary Fay and his family 
third. 

When I look back through the long years and recall 
these individuals Patt Carr comes first, and I recall a 
little story I read once of the experience of a 
census enumerator who called at an Irish woman's 
door and asked how many members her household 
numbered, and she replied promptly, " just me and 
Mike and the billy goat sir." Patt's family could have 
been summed up as easily, for there were just three 
in the family, Judy, Patt and their bull dog, and it 
would be hard to tell which individual was of the most 
importance. 

As children, the bull dog claimed the most of our 
attention for he was a vicious looking brute. He and 
Patt were not a handsome pair and no one to blame 
either — a bull dog cannot help being a bull dog — it 
runs in the blood so as to speak, and they are seldom 
handsome creatures, more useful than ornamental. 

Patt had a great deformity, too, and neither was he 
to blame. It was just one of nature's ways of dis- 
figuring things, and in Patt's case nature took the form 
of a cancer and burrowed into Patt's nose until there 
was nothing left of it and then stopped. Not so with 
Patt, he continued to live right along and seemed to 
get a good deal of pleasure out of life, even if he were 
noseless. 

The bull dog's nose was not much longer than Patt's, 
but his teeth were more suggestive. 

How many times I have seen these two, sitting by 



Sketches of the Neighbors 109 

the door of their humble dwelling, Patt drawing away 
at an old clay pipe and puffing clouds of vile smoke 
in the air, the bull dog grinning at him just enough 
to show his teeth and the kind of metal that bull dogs 
are made of. 

We children never loitered around Patt's corner 
when the dog was unchained. 

Patt was harmless and so was Judy his wife, but 
that dog was one of the trials of our childhood, not 
that he ever hurt any one, he only looked as though 
he wanted to and we were careful to not excite his 
ire. 

V/e knew very little of the cobbler. He had a large 
family and much poverty — worked early and late, but 
how they managed to live at all in such small quarters 
was a great mystery to us. 

He was always sitting at his bench pegging away 
when not sewing, always trying to mend old things 
and make them as good as new. 

I wonder how many pegs driven into the sole of an 
old shoe it takes to earn a dinner for ten. 

I wish some of the men interested in the social prob- 
lem would figure it out. 

Up in the attic lived Lary Fay and his wife Mary. 
He tall, thin and stooped shouldered, bowed down by 
the weight of years, and toil and poverty. She young, 
rosy cheeked and buxom, clinging to this old relic of 
a long gone generation, and who should have been 
sleeping with his fathers, instead of helping a new 
generation into existence, for the young Fays flour- 
ished, and were, despite their poverty, as rosy cheeked 



no Fortune's Wheel 

and healthy a looking lot as could be found in the 
village. 

The family was great and so was the poverty. There 
was '' a bit " of a stove to cook on, and '' a bit " of 
a table to eat on, but never a chair to sit on, only stools 
and boxes, and then there was a bed which changed 
its appearance with the season. After harvest when 
straw could be begged from some Irish farmer, the 
bed looked like a small straw stack covered with a 
patch work quilt, but as the season waned the bed 
kept pace, and rose or fell with the season. 

There were sure to be *' praties " in the pot if nothing 
else, and salt has always been cheap thank God, and 
somehow these people managed to keep soul and body 
together. I have stood behind Mary's box when the 
family were at dinner and watched them eat. Lary 
would take a " pratie " and stand it up with one hand, 
and with his fist gently strike it down just flat enough 
to see the white inside bursting through the jacket 
which was never removed in the cooking. The best 
of the potato lies next to the skin, then he would 
sprinkle salt on and it was ready for eating; and not 
a plate on the table but one and that held the dinner 
consisting of nothing but potatoes for them all. 

The family ate as did the head, that is the reason a 
family has a head so that there will be a governing 
power. 

All these people, such as they were, were our neigh- 
bors, and I could go on indefinitely for there were 
plenty more like them, but this is enough to show 



Sketches of the Neighbors 1 1 1 

something of the old days, the good old days when 
peace and plenty abounded, the days for which many 
are sighing, but which we hope will never return. Let 
us look toward the new day and forget the old. 



CHAPTER X 

DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS 

Emerson says that " everything has a grace in the 
past, the river bank, the old house and even the fooHsh 
person," and to me this seems true. My childhood 
was so narrow and cramped that these details are all 
needed to fill out the picture. 

I have written of the river bank where a child I 
played, and of the old house, the scene of my earliest 
joys and disciplines, and when I think of the persons — 
foolish and otherwise — who crossed and recrossed my 
life in that long ago, their figures come and go like 
moving objects in a kaleidoscope. Strange queer per- 
sons many of them were and left in my memory only 
a sense of something passing. A something that did 
not belong to me, only touched my life and set me to 
thinking. Why are people different? Do all these 
queer beings have a part in the great plan? Is God 
the common father of this medley of human life ? And 
my heart answers, yes. In the great drama of life 
everything has its place. Everything has its opposite. 
For folly there is wisdom ; for old age there is youth ; 
for summer, winter, and for heaven an opposite just 
as sure as there is death after life. 

In this picture of my childhood, there stands out in 
bold relief the figure of a tall, gaunt woman, with a 

112 



Different Individuals 113 

vacant look on her weather beaten face, and from 
whose eyes, piercing and wild, was gone the light of 
reason. Who she was or where she came from we 
never knew, but she made a tour of our village several 
times during each summer. She wore a costume of 
faded begrimed cotton which might have been white 
once but had lost all semblance to any color. There was 
an old sunbonnet tied at the back of her head instead 
of under her chin, her shoes were worn to tatters and 
fastened to her feet with rags, and she was adorned 
with bundles — bundles large and small. They were fas- 
tened to her person in every available place. Some 
were hanging from her neck, others from her shoulders 
and still others were attached to her waist and swung 
to and fro as she walked. Some were hanging from 
her arms and several small ones were tied together, 
those she carried in her hand. When people came to 
the village and brought no name we always named 
them. This woman we named Mary Bundle. 

There was another one, an old woman who wore a 
very short and full dress, and such a broad-brimmed 
hat, it rested on her shoulders at the back. She carried 
a staff and looked like a pilgrim whose face was set 
toward the '' holy city." She never looked around at 
any one but walked straight 'ahead with the stride of 
a soldier in the '' King's regulars," whose legs were 
too short to keep step with a taller comrade. We 
named her Old Mountain Traveler. 

There was Uncle Johnny Fulton who had been a 
child for years. He had thin red hair, watery blue 
eyes and a toothless smile with no mirth in it. A trifle 



L 



114 Fortune's Wheel 

stooped in the shoulders, and altogether resembling 
'* The Last Leaf " of Holmes to perfection. The sum- 
mer he was ninety-six the children in the village all 
got the whooping cough, and Uncle Johnny took it 
too and was carried off. We missed him from our play 
ground for he was as interested and delighted at our 
games as any one of us could have been. There was 
not a boy in the village who enjoyed flying a kite or 
hoarding up old bits of twine and old knives more than 
he, and he never missed a chance to trade knives with 
a boy *' no blade no trade," only Uncle Johnny usually 
came out from the trade with the best blade. 

Then, there was Uncle Johnny Armstrong who 
always saluted us with " the top of the morning to ye," 
no matter what time in the day it was. 

There was old Sil Carr who always cried out — 
when he heard a child crying in distress or pain — 
" the breed, the breed, the breed." Oh, how he an- 
noyed us with his unfeeling words and laugh. And 
so they pass along, a motley throng, for in those 
days common rnen not having education, and there 
being nothing to stimulate the mental, became children 
again in every sense of the word. 

The study of literature nourishes youth and stimu- 
lates old age, and they not having had nourishment 
in youth had no stimulant for old age, and when the 
mental spark went out it left only a feeble dilapidated 
physical. 

There were some professional men worthy of notice 
too. 

There was old Dr. Mott, a gentleman of the old 



Different Individuals iij 

school, very quiet and dignified, and also very ex- 
clusive. He was a doctor of the old school and had 
his hobby and rode it hard. His hobby was blood- 
letting. He always advised it; for, he would say, 
when the system is clogged by a surplus of blood it 
prevents the organs from performing their proper 
fimctions, and in this way all disease is brought about. 
So to stop the progress of the disease he relieved his 
patient of his life's nourishment and the patient if 
strong enough survived, and if not took his place in 
the silent land and gave room to another, and the 
doctor passed on to the next. 

Doctors practice bleeding still, but it is done differ- 
ently now, and while the physical man is not injured 
it seems to have a very debilitating effect on the 
finances of the whole family. 

Then we had Dr. Brigham, a little in advance of 
Mott ; for he thought all the ills that flesh is heir to 
come directly from the stomach, and his patients 
were treated accordingly. He argued that if a man 
had a carbuncle it came from diseased stomach and 
he gave an emetic, or if it were a fever it came from 
the same source and he gave an emetic. If a man had 
a broken limb he gave an emetic to keep the stomach 
from digesting too much food, and thereby enriching 
the blood, which might cause fever to set in. 

Well, Dr. Brigham had another idea quite in ad- 
vance of some doctors of even our day. He thought 
a simple herb much better for the purpose than a 
liquid compounded by an apothecary, and he always 
carried with him for this purpose an herb called 



ii6 Fortune^s Wheel 

^' lobelia," one of the most forcible emetics known. 
After taking one dose many a poor creature has been 
cured of the worst case of hysteria. In fact it was a 
sure cure for nearly all the small ailments. 

The people knew so much about the *' Lobelia Cure " 
they frequently talked it over and made remarks quite 
detrimental to the doctor's dignity. 

Sometimes when he would be riding along in his 
gig even the boys in the street would cry out " Lobelia, 
lobelia, lobelia." 

There was such a funny story going the rounds of 
the youngsters that I will repeat it here. Boys in going 
to First Creek to fish had repeated the story of Dr. 
Brigham and his " Lobelia Cure " in the presence of 
a. family of green frogs, who by the way must have 
been a very knowing lot if the story be true, and the 
frogs thought it so funny they had told it to all their 
acquaintances along the creek, and when Dr. Brigham 
would be driving along into the country to visit some 
sick person and drive over the bridge some big frog 
under the bridge would cry out " who goes there ? " 
and a frog a little way down who could see the bridge 
would respond in a deep bass voice " Dr. Brigham," 
and a female treble higher up would cry '' Lobelia, 
lobelia," and the whole chorus would join in and shout 
*' Puke, puke, puke." 

We children had heard this story over and over 
again, and knew not if it were true or otherwise. So 
one day when we were playing at the creek we saw 
a big green frog in the grass, and creeping upon him 
unawares caught him. He was very much surprised 



Different Individuals 117 

at our boldness and kicked and wriggled to get away. 
But we held him fast and told him the story and 
asked him if it were true. Once he opened his mouth 
as though he were going to speak to us then closed 
it and looked at us and winked wickedly. When we 
could not get a word from him we decided that frogs 
could not talk and set him on a big flat rock. As soon 
as we let go of him he leaped off into the water and 
shouted back at us " puke." Then we were undecided 
whether frogs could talk or not, but learned later that 
the sound the frog emits is as near that word as any 
word one could think of. 

Anyway we got a lot of fun out of the poor old 
doctor and his " Lobelia Cure." 

There were two other doctors, but they were only 
common, ordinary ones, who occasionally made a cor- 
rect diagnosis and applied the proper remedy, thus 
curing the patient. But many a time they were wrong 
and their patients passed on just as it has been from 
the beginning and will be to the end. 

Hosea Fenton kept a little shop on a corner right 
where we always had to pass on our way to school. 
I suppose fifty dollars would have paid for the entire 
stock. It was just a tiny shop and had two small 
windows and a very high counter. I know our heads 
only came to the top, and we would have to look up 
to see Hosea on the other side. 

He was a large man, and looked so big and red, and 
wore spectacles which were either hanging on or near 
the end of his nose, or shoved away back over his 
forehead. He wore a beaming smile, had kindly blue 



ii8 Fortune's Wheel 

eyes, and what hair he had — it was only a ring around ^ . 
his neck and over his ears — was red. His shining ' 
bald pate always recalled to us stories we had heard 
of Indians and their scalping proclivities, and we — of 
course, we were very small — would wonder if Hosea I 
had lost his hair that way. . I 

We knew that Uncle William was baldheaded, and j 
knew too that he had never engaged in any Indian 
warfare for he was a Scotchman and came from away 
over the sea, but he was such a different man from 
Hosea, we hardly dared speculate on the cause of his 
baldness. We thought there was a true, cause for it, 
for our mother had a small bald spot on the top of her 
head, and she had explained it so many times we 
thought every one who was bald must have had some 
kind of hair raising or pulling. 

This is the way she got her bald spot. Her mother 
kept a large flock of geese, and one day when she 
was a small girl she was teasing them, and the gander 
flew at her and caught her by her hair and never let 
go till he had pulled out a lock, and someone ran to 
her rescue. The hair never grew in that spot again. 

Well Hosea would spread out his wares in the most 
tempting fashion, and there was scarcely a child in 
the village who could resist them. 

Perhaps I had been sitting an hour by the old 
clock and had my copper in my pocket, and feeling 
very grand and important too. Why shouldn't I? 
I had money and money brings power. Even in those 
days the boy or girl who had money and could buy 



Different Individuals 119 

something sweet was in greater demand than cxie who 
had nothing of the sort. So I determine to keep my 
copper and use my power. 

Hosea is standing in his door just like a big fat 
spider who has spread his web and is waiting for a 
victim. I have my hand in my pocket and clutch my 
copper very tightly, saying I shall not stop. But 
Hosea beams on me and says in his blandest tone 
** good morning, sis." I reply good morning Mr. Fen- 
ton and keep right on, but he does not intend any such 
thing. 

Oh. we are in a hurry this morning I see ! I reply 
stopping of course. Yes, I am going to do an errand 
before school this moniing. Then he tells me he has 
on a new lot of candy, and it looks so lovely, and is so 
sweet, and the sticks are of unusual size this time, and 
won't I just stop and see it; it won't take much time, 
and it does not cost anything to look at good things. 
So it all ends in my going in and Hosea spreads out 
his wares and beams on me, and somehow the first 
thing I know my copper has found its way into Hosea's 
Httle till, and I with my candy go on my errand. 

Between us, Hosea and the children, we were cir- 
lating mediums in every sense of the word, for 
nearly ever}- copper we got found its way into cir- 
culation through Hosea's little shop. 

^Ir. Walters was the richest man in the village and v 
lived in a fine, large stone house, whose front windows 
were always closed. They were ver}- exclusive people 
and did not want their neighbors looking in. and be- 



I20 Fortune's Wheel 

sides there is something so very impressive in a great 
house all shut out from the eager gaze of vulgar eyes. 

I was never in the front part of the great house, 
but had some acquaintance with the back yard, for I 
went there many times during the summer selling my 
berries. 

There was a high tight fence, no vulgar eyes could 
look over or through. Even the gate shut with a latch 
like a door, but inside the yard was very beautiful 
with flowers and shrubs and trees whose cool shade 
always tempted me to loiter, but the eye of the master 
said go and I usually went as noiselessly and quickly 
as possible if the master were about. 

There was a piazza at the rear of the great house 
facing the garden, and here the family sat to enjoy 
the cool refreshing air of evening. And with their 
high tight fence and great house to enclose them they 
were just as shut out from the great world of common 
humanity as though that world did not exist. But 
there were things that could creep in, things that knew 
neither bolt nor bar. Stone house and high fence were 
no barrier. The common lot of humanity, pain and 
death could come to them and nothing could detain 
them when once they sought an entrance there. Mr. 
Walters had had three children, but his eldest son was 
dead. Died of a peculiar disease. The doctors called it 
lack of ambition, the common people said he was too 
lazy to live. 

They had employed physicians of the different 
schools all to no purpose. Dr. Mott came and decided 
it was a surplus of blood which clogged the young 



Different Individuals 12I 

man's system, and he could relieve it quite easily with 
his lancet. But the young man was even worse and 
more languid than before, and kept his bed for weeks 
after the bleeding. Dr. Brigham's " LobeHa Cure " 
only served to quicken his pulses while the medicine 
was taking effect, and as soon as it wore off he re- 
lapsed into his old apathy. Then another physician 
was called in, one of the ordinary common ones. The 
father reasoned that sometimes honest worth and skill 
were overlooked in the presence of seemingly superior 
experimenters. 

This doctor decided that driving would be beneficial, 
the young man would get the fresh air and sunshine 
and change of scenery, and it would set the life current 
flowing anew. But the poor young man had not life 
enough to drive a horse, and there had to be someone 
to handle the reins. 

One day the physician thought of a new plan, and 
carried it out with the following results : 

He invited the young man to drive with him into the 
country a distance of three miles, then getting him 
out of the vehicle drove off and left him standing in 
the road. It was the first time any one had ever taken 
any liberty with him, and he was stricken with dumb 
amazement. 

Late in the day the father grew anxious — the young 
man not returning — and went in search of him and 
found him lying beside the road just where the doctor 
had left him. Somehow after that they gave up and 
knew that death had claimed him, and this rich and 
exclusive young man died before his twenty-first year 



122 Fortune*s Wheel 

was completed, just because he had not enough spirit 
to rise above the indolence which he inherited with 
his fortune. 

So one guest had entered that exclusive home and 
carried off the darling, the idol of the mother's heart, 
her first born son. 

Their next son Tom had too much spirit. In fact if 
these two boys could have been divided up about 
equally their history even in this brief space would not 
be written by me. 

But it was not to be that way. If one has spirit 
and money and leisure, the usual consequences follow, 
the money goes where the spirit takes it, and in this 
case the spirit was equal to anything. The boy just 
ran wild. 

He played cards, a terrible crime in that day, took 
trips abroad that cost money, and finally got into the 
habit of letting in other spirits worse than the first, 
and was brought home nights in a condition which 
nearly broke his mother's heart. 

Then they took council again, this time in regard to 
their youngest ' son's physical and financial condition, 
and decided the best thing for him would be to choose 
a wife and put an end to the sowing of " wild oats." 

They were not long in finding a young lady who 
was willing to take Tom with the money. 

There was a beautiful house built. I think it cost 
six thousand dollars, a large sum in that day. The 
grounds were lovely and everything seemed all a 
human heart could wish. But Tom had been born 
with too much spirit to endure the dull life which had 



Different Individuals 123 

now been thrust upon him, and his spirit rebelled and 
sought other spirits which proved wicked spirits and 
they finally carried him off. Again this exclusive 
home had been invaded by an unbidden, unwelcome 
guest, and neither bolt nor bar could keep him out, 
and the father and mother were poor in spirit for their 
two sons were now gone. Even in my young girlhood 
the beautiful home was owned and occupied by 
strangers. 

Then there was their daughter the youngest in the 
family. She had a finished education received in some 
young ladies' school in a distant city. She could draw 
and play the pianoforte and dance divinely, and she 
was very beautiful to look upon too. Her parents 
had had her complexion purified in New York City by 
some one especially fitted for the purpose. Her hair 
was dark, her eyes hazel, her form not tall and wil- 
lowy, but formed like a Greek goddess, and altogether 
she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. 

I had heard so much of her great beauty that I was 
very anxious to see her. She had been away to school 
while I was too young to know and understand these 
things, but when I was getting larger and she home — 
and I going there to sell my berries — I would see her 
sitting there on the piazza with her parents. I have 
always had an eye for the beautiful, and could not 
help seeing and admiring; her great beauty. 

She was married to a young society man about the 
time I was thirteen years old and left there forever. 

Years later being anxious to know how Arabella 
Walters was getting on, I wrote to my cousin and asked 



124 Fortune's Wheel 

for her. My cousin replied that Arabella's husband 
had turned out a profligate drunkard, and Arabella in 
a fit of jealous rage had shot and killed him. I never 
knew her fate. She was waiting trial in a distant city 
where the crime was committed. 

And so they come and go, 
These people who crossed my life in that long ago; 

Not shadows grim and dark, 
But objects real who felt life's pain and smart. 



CHAPTER XI 

SCHOOLS 

I MUST have been a very small child when I began 
going to school, for I cannot remember of learning 
anything from a book at the first one. 

It was what was called a Dame's school, and was 
kept by a woman named Mrs. Fenton, and in a room of 
her house. ^ 

There were two very small windows facing the 
north, and the light came in and cast a feeble, dull 
color on everything. There was a fire-place on the 
south side, and a long bench stood against the wall 
so high that our feet did not come anywhere near the 
floor, and a spinning wheel on the opposite side com- 
pleted the entire furnishing of this my first school- 
room. 

We were seated on the bench and given a lesson to 
learn — though what it was I cannot remember — then 
the Dame would go on with her spinning till we had 
the task completed. She did not teach her school, she 
kept it. That was much easier for her, and with her 
method just as well for the pupils. 

The only thing I can remember of learning there was 
that I got very tired sitting on the high bench, and try 
as hard as I could my feet would not reach the floor. 

At a given hour some one came and led me home. 

125 



126 Fortune's Wheel 

I cannot remember when I learned to read. When 
I was ten year old I could read as fluently as I can 
now, and when I would stand up and read from my old 
National Reader and rattle off the words just as fast 
as I could pronounce them, some slow boy would 
whisper " I wish I could read like that," and I ,was a 
proud girl. 

The principal things taught in my young day were 
reading and spelling. The words were not always 
pronounced correctly to the pupil though as many 
a one can testify to. I often hear persons say " that 
word was not pronounced so in my young day." The 
fault, nine times out of ten, was that the teacher did 
not know the correct pronunciation, and the pupils got 
the benefit of the teacher's ignorance. 

When I was five years old I was promoted and sent 
to the old stone school house where all the large boys 
and girls went. I felt very proud of my elementary 
speller and little geography. 

The speller was interesting on account of some 
stories — one about a milk-maid and another about some 
boys who were caught, by an old man, stealing apples. 
That man's anger always reminded us of Uncle Wil- 
liam's outbursts of temper, and the story was so true 
and real we were glad to be the little girls reading 
instead of the two thieves up in the tree, and we really 
were sorry for the poor milk-maid to spill her milk 
and thus spoil all the pleasure she anticipated. This 
book was committed to memory, for it really consti- 
tuted our whole world of literature at that time. 

There were two rooms in the old stone school house, 



Schools 127 

and a master always taught in the upper room or the 
room where the largest boys and girls were. 

The master's position was a dual one : that of teacher 
and flogger. He taught some and flogged a good deal. 
Nearly every boy was flogged sometime during each 
term, and some of them many times during each term. 
No day went by without a fight between the master and 
some boy, large or small. The master generally com- 
ing off victorious, for some parents whipped their chil- 
dren at home if they were whipped in school, and the 
master knew he had sympathizers. 

There were other modes of punishment in those 
days, too — " a dunce block and fool's cap " were just 
as much a part of the teacher's outfit as a knowledge 
of the multiplication table, and when a boy or girl 
were unusually dull or mischievous, they were brought 
out before the whole school and stood on the dunce 
block and had the tall fool's cap put on — and there they 
stood, a laughing stock for the whole school — and the 
school took advantage of the situation by clapping, 
stamping, laughing and even cheering. If the child 
was sensitive, it was pitiful to see its misery. But 
many a boy laughed with the rest and seemed to enjoy 
it all. 

The teachers had another way too, which was heart- 
breaking to nearly every spruce and tamarack loving 
gum chewer — there was such a quantity of those two 
kinds in the swamp near the village, and every winter 
father and the boys would gather a large quantity — 
others did the same — and when we would ta^:e a chew 
to school it nearly always found its way into the old 



1128 Fortune's Wheel 

fire place. The teacher would see the jaws moving 
and come over and put the ferule right under the 
offending mouth, and that gum had to be put on the 
end of that ferule and the teacher walked over and 
tossed it into the fire. We usually disliked the teacher 
for that day, but children forget easily and by the 
next day the gum scene was acted right over. 

The women teachers seldom tried to whip the large 
boys. It made a more lasting impression on the school 
to see the master thrashing them. 

How many times have I seen the teacher write a 
little note and send it by some small boy or girl and 
immediately in would walk the master with the air of 
a destroying demon, and some poor culprit made to 
stand forth. The master usually left him whipped if 
not conquered. 

There was a fire place in the old stone school house, 
consequently the pupils on the back seats got very little 
benefit from the warmth, and in order to keep up a 
good circulation they had to resort to other means 
" fair or foul," and they were generally '* foul." 

Many of their mischievous pranks were played on 
a poor unfortunate fellow named Patt Canada. Patt 
was what is called a plain looking person. He was 
tall, six feet I think, though when he stood by me in 
the spelling class he looked much taller. He had a 
round face and that soft flesh peculiar to freckled 
people, and his face, neck and hands were covered 
with yellow freckles. His eyes were light blue 
— very light — and no expression in them. His hair 



Schools 129 

was red and to complete the picture of facial 
beauty he had a large purple bunch on his tem- 
ple, nearly as large as a hen's egg. Patt seldom 
stirred without a tag of some kind being attached to 
his person, with all sorts of things being written an 
printed on it. Sometimes a tag would be attached to 
his back telling any one seeing it to " show this boy 
the way home." " A little weak in the upper story," 
" head scholar," and everything they could conjure up 
to annoy this undeveloped youth. 

Although he was jokingly called head scholar, he 
had few or no head marks and that was considered 
quite a disgrace in that day. When we spelled the 
whole school spelled at once, and all spelled the same 
lesson. We stood in a row on the floor, and sometimes 
the row was so long it reached across one side and up 
the end of the room. The head scholar would walk 
out calling number two, and two would take the place 
calling three, and so on until the whole school were out 
on the floor. Then the teacher would begin to " put 
out " the words, taking no notice whatever of mis- 
spelled ones. And if no one missed all went well. Per- 
haps the one next the head would miss and away down 
near the foot some scholar would take it up, spell the 
word correctly, and go up, the envy of the whole school. 

There were rare opportunities in those days to get 
prizes for the one who had the most head marks at 
the end of the term got a card with " reward of merit " 
printed on it. 

The old stone schoolhouse was pulled down and a 



130 Fortune's Wheel 

new red brick one built on the same site. There were 
two rooms below and the whole upper story was all 
in one room. 

When school first opened in the new building I was 
in the intermediate department. I learned rapidly 
anything depending on memory, and *' reading, writ- 
ing and spelling " were the things taught, so I got on 
amazingly, and by the time I was ten years old was 
sent up stairs to school. Then I came under the mas- 
ter's eye. 

My experience with the masters so far had been in 
the way of watching their fights with the boys, and 
their little love scenes with the teachers. 

I recall one young man. He had a fat face covered 
with pimples. He would come down into Miss Ann 
Jones's room and sit on the corner of her little table 
and say sweet things to her at recess, we standing 
by wondering how she could endure him. I think she 
must have enjoyed his physical strength too — he was 
a young Hercules — for she sent for him very fre- 
quently to punish refractory boys. 

Once when she had sent for the young master to 
come down and punish a big boy he ran to the door 
and tried to escape, but she called for help and several 
boys came and held the door for a minute only, for 
the master was right on the spot, and he and the boy 
had a rough and tumble fight, all the school looking 
on in breathless silence expecting some one to get 
hurt. We were not disappointed. The boy was pun- 
ished severely. 

My first experience with the master was anything 



Schools 131 

but pleasant. He was a married man and had children 
of his own and understood the nature of a child, and 
had his own original methods for treatment. He wore 
slippers in the school room and could run over the desks 
as nimbly as a cat and not make any more noise either. 
The first thing- a mischievous boy or girl knew he was 
right there to see what was going on. I have seen 
this man stand in the middle of the room and throw 
his ferule clear across the room at some boy or girl, 
and every one in the vicinity of its passage through 
the air cringing low, none daring to flee. 

But for all his vigilance there were many a grimace 
made at the back of his august person. 

When he opened school in the morning he called the 
roll, and when some pupil failed to be present to re- 
spond some one present would cry " absent," perhaps 
another would repeat *' absent," this irritated the mas- 
ter. He would look up and say sternly " no more of 
that," then many a time a big boy bolder than the rest 
would repeat, almost in the voice of a challenge " ab- 
sent," then the master would rise quickly, rush over 
to the offender and jerk him out on to the floor. Per- 
haps the poor fellow would stand there the whole 
forenoon. It did not end this way always. Once the 
third responder was quite a young man, and when the 
master reached his seat he was standing ready for 
anything, and when the master tried to strike him 
they clinched, but the master soon released him and 
told him to leave school. He gathered up his books 
and walked to the door, and bowing gracefully to the 
school burst forth in a poetic flow of imagery, 



132 Fortune's Wheel 

Good-bye scholars, 
Good-bye school, 
Good-bye master. 
You're a fool. 

then closing the door ran hastily down stairs. His 
father was an influential man and he was soon in his 
old seat again. The next master was a married man 
too. He was a tall man with light blue eyes and red 
hair and whiskers. 

I wonder if color makes or marks the individual. 

Patt Canada had this same coloring and he did not 
seem to have any temper at all, and when the boys 
teased him he would drop his under jaw and just 
look vacant. But this red-headed master was entirely 
different. Perhaps he had reached a higher degree of 
development and knew when he was imposed upon. 
And in that red brick school house in that long ago 
when the bent of common ordinary boys' minds run 
to mischief, that red-headed master met his match 
many a time. 

This master was worse on discipline than the last 
had been, and kept from one to three standing on the 
floor all the time. Once he feruled two girls. They 
were playing some little puzzle on their slates and he 
caught them at it. He made them hold out their 
hands there over the desk, and every time he struck 
the quivering palm the back of the hand struck against 
the desk, and at recess their hands were all covered 
with great white blisters. 

I never knew the parents to make complaints against 
these abuses. 



Schools 133 

Sometimes he would rush over to some boy, jerk 
him out of his seat, drag him on to the floor, and flog 
him unmercifully. 

The young men would retaliate by doing something 
meaner than a small boy had been whipped for, and 
when the master tried to punish them they fought, and 
many a time the master was compelled to yield by 
taking his seat at the table. On such occasions his 
color, rose perceptibly, and we little girls gloated over 
his chagrin. 

There were four young ladies attending school the 
summer this red-headed master taught and fought. 
They sat on a long bench at the end of the room and 
had a table before them for their work. One day the 
master told Jim Martin, a six footer, to stand on the 
floor for some offense given — there was a boy on 
the floor already — ^^and Jim not wishing to irritate the 
master further got up and started toward the center of 
the room, then changed his mind and went down to the 
end where the young ladies were and seated himself 
on the edge of their table, began conversing with 
them. The master fairly flashed fire, but no blaze 
was started for Jim was as the little boys said after- 
wards *' biger'n the master and he didn't dast to tech 
him." 

The other poor boy stood by the bell rope until recess. 

That was one thing the master had to do, ring the 
bell, and the rope was in the school room to have it 
handy. 

But it was not all shadow, there were many lights 
in my young school days. We played many games at 



134 Fortune's Wheel 

morning, noon and recess. In the summer — out of 
doors, on the common adjoining the school grounds, 
and in stormy weather inside the school house, we 
managed to amuse ourselves in many ways. We played 
'* the needle's eye, ring around a rosy, drop the hand- 
kerchief and other games." 

Once we were playing " scorn " and I was led up 
to a boy who had the chair — he had refused to accept 
several girls — and I went with fear of being scorned 
too. He spoke out loud so all could hear. You don't 
think I'd choose her, do you? She's mean and her 
father makes tubs. I was heartbroken. . I thought my 
father working at his cooper's bench as good as Legara 
Mee's father, for he kept a little rum shop on a corner. 
• I knew the Mees lived in a better house and wore 
better clothes than we did, but their father's face was 
bloated, and red, and he was blear eyed and repulsive, 
and my father's face was clear like a summer's sky. 

But money counted then as now, no notice being 
taken of how it was obtained. 

One winter ,the upper room gave an exhibition. I 
can remember but two things ; one a gipsy scene, and 
this being the first tableau I had ever seen I thought 
it very fine. 

But the next was our Seth. He spoke a piece called 
" California Joe." You see people were flocking to 
California from all over the world at that time, and 
judging from this piece that Seth spoke some of them 
must have been rough men. who enjoyed a round at 
fist-i-cuif s. Seth was dressed in one of the antiquated 
coats from our lintem very much too large for him. 



Schools 



135 



He had on a high hat which ran up to a peak, and a 
red sash around his waist. I can remember only the 
first verse, but the rest were in the same strain. 

They clinched like two rampageous bears, 

And both fell on a sit. 
They swore a stream of six- inch oaths, 

And fit, and fit, and fit. 

He acted it all out amazingly well, clinching his 
imaginary antagonist and measuring off the six-inch 
oaths, and when he came to the last he struck out and 
shook his fist at the audience. I thought it the most 
clever piece of acting I had ever seen, and' it was for 
it was my very first experience with acting. 

One time when there was a school tree, and each 
one was to put on a present for some one else, I had 
been doing work for my sick, young soldier, uncle, 
in caring for his room, keeping medicine glasses clean, 
etc. I had earned ten cents, a ten-cent shinplaster. 
I felt very grand with so much money, the most I had 
ever had in all my life, and I decided to buy a present 
for a boy I was very much in love with. 

I went to the toy shop and finally settled on a little 
tea kettle. This seemed more showy than anything 
my ten cents would purchase. 

But when the tree came ofT that horrid boy had not 
put on a present for me, and I was very unhappy to 
think I had parted with my money so foolishly. 

Light and shade. I have found it thus ever and 
after the long shadow of flogging masters light dawned 
and we got a new one, a better one. 



136 Fortune's Wheel 

We had had so many and all alike in regard to flog- 
ging that we wondered each time what we would get 
next, and looked forward with some anxiety to his 
dread arrival. Why shouldn't we? In that day he had 
control of the intellect and " blue beech " too, and when 
there was an unusually mean one in power we- learned 
little or nothing, for no child can do well at any task 
when filled with fear. But one summer bright and 
early on Monday morning we started to school to begin 
a new term with a new master, wondering if he were 
married, would he wear slippers in the school room 
and run over the desks, or would he be red-headed, 
knowing that that coloring, when properly developed 
made an irritable temperament in mankind. There 
were so many things depending on the master we 
hoped he would be different from the others. 

We .went to the schoolhouse early to choose seats, 
and to get as far away from the master's eye as pos- 
sible. 

Just before time to ring the first bell the door opened 
and in walked a very handsome young man dressed 
in a light summer suit, that set off his young beauty to 
great advantage. 

He had a tall graceful form, blue eyes, brown mus- 
tache and white flesh and looked a regular Apollo. 
Who was this person? Some one coming to school? 
Surely it could not be the master. We had never had 
any master that looked that young and handsome. 
He walked along to the teacher's table and began 
arranging some things there, then we knew he was the 
master. After surveying him for several minutes I 



Schools 137 

took my books and sought a new seat. This time as 
near the master as I could get, and sat there a whole 
summer and never regretted my second choice of a 
seat. He was just as good and accomplished as he ^' 
looked, and we all loved Peter Richmond. 

He never went down at recess to make love to the 
Ann Jones who presided below. He was there to teach 
us, and he gave us his time and attention. 

Who was he and where did he come from, were 
questions frequently asked by us. We knew no family 
by that name in or near the village. Away down the 
river on a farm was a family by that name, but they 
were Irish and Catholic too, surely he could not be- 
long to them. We did not dare ask him where his 
home was, and never seeing him in any of our churches 
did not know where he worshiped. 

After he had been in school about two months he 
told us one morning that his father was very ill and 
he must go home. The next day we heard that his 
father was dead, and he was the Mr. Richmond down 
the river and the funeral would be held in the Catholic 
church. When the time came there was an unusual 
crowd thronging that church, we turned out en masse, 
the whole school. 

When the body was brought in there was the young 
master leading his mother, and he looking so sad and 
broken-hearted, and the conviction was forced upon 
us then that there were scholarly men belonging to that 
church, and men who were good and true, for no one 
could be better than the young master. 

He taught our school all that summer and never 



138 Fortune's Wheel 

flogged any one, and for some reason every one seemed 
to be on their good behavior and did not need punish- 
ment. That was the beginning of the dawn, which 
has ended in the broad day of hght in oilr schools. 

For men know now that the awful punishments of 
that day only developed a race of fighters and illiterate 
men and women. 

The fate of nations depends upon the education of 
youth, not on seeing how much physical torture they 
can endure. 

Years have come and gone since the things recorded 
in these pages occurred, and time changes everything, 
even the good young master has changed. He is an 
elderly man now, and a doctor of ability healing 
the bodies of men instead of training the intellect of 
youth. 



CHAPTER XII 

DAYS SPENT WITH MOTHER 

My mother was a born berry-picker, just as some 
persons are bom orators, teachers or even politicians. 
I do not know why one could not inherit berry-picking 
as well as other things. Her mother was a berry- 
picker before her, and it ran in the family, and she, 
not being responsible for what ran in the family, took 
to berry-picking too. 

I once read of a man who had a wooden leg, and a 

gentleman asked him what accident left him with a 

wooden leg and he replied *' it was not an accident sir, 

; in runs in the family ; father had one and so had grand- 

. father," and if wooden legs can run in a family I am 

I sure that berry-picking can too. 

I In my young days I disliked berry-picking very 
much for it meant so much to me. When I was too 
1 small to pick and the baby had to be taken, father 
would take us in a boat, and land us somewhere down 
I the river, and mother would spread a blanket on the 
j grass under a tree for the baby, and I would have to 
I sit there and watch it to see that it got nothing in its 
' mouth, and did not creep from the blanket. Our 
j children large and small had plenty of spirit, and the 
baby did not want to stay right in one place, and I 
did not either, but stay we must, for mother had a 

139 



140 Fortune*s Wheel 

way of convincing us that we must, and we usually 
did while she remained in sight anyway. Father, of 
course, went off to some favorite resort and fished. 
Berry-picking and fishing are very much mixed in 
my memory of those early years, for in the summer 
time there were always some of these expeditions on 
foot, and all who could be spared from other things 
took a part. 

Mother would get up very early when she intended 
an inland trip, get the breakfast over as quickly as pos- 
sible, then leave the other work for my eldest sister ; 
take one of the younger girls with her, and go for 
miles and miles, never stopping until she found ber- 
ries, no matter how far the journey. She took me six 
miles once, and when we got there I was so tired I 
could not sit up, and spent the greater part of the day 
lying on the grass resting preparatory to getting home. 

Then when we would get home the berries were got 
ready and sold. Mother always said, she had to pick 
berries, to make a living, for her family. 

I was not able then, nor have I ever been able to 
understand how she made anything by wearing out so 
much shoe leather running after berries, and the 
children doing the work broke many things, and really 
there was no money in it, and mother only did it be- 
cause she was born to it, and did it for pure love of it. 
I have known her in later years go roaming over the 
fields in search of wild strawberries when she had 
tame ones going to waste in her garden. But she 
would say " the wild ones taste better," and for once 
we could agree with her. 



Days Spent with Mother 141 

She would always go alone. She did not intend to 
find places for other people to pick berries. They could 
find their own places. 

I did not like the plan. I wanted some child along 
and then we could combine work with pleasure. But 
m.other could never see two sides to the question, and 
we went alone. 

She was not a woman of education. It was not to 
be had by the common people in her young days, but 
she had a great deal of curiosity and was anxious to 
see and know what was going on around her, so she 
got all the information she could by asking questions. 
If we met a man driving a flock of sheep she would 
stop him and ask where he was going, and what he 
was going to do with the sheep ; how many he had in 
the flock ; where his home was, and everything con- 
cerning his business she could think of. He told her 
anything he wanted to and passed on, I wondering 
how she could stop a strange man and ask so many 
questions. 

Next we meet a woman going to town. She stops 
her and asks what the woman has to sell, and gets the 
reply " butter and eggs," then mother must know what 
price the woman expects for her products ; how far 
away her home is ; and does she know any good place 
for strawberries? No, the woman does not, and we 
trudge on. Soon" we come to a house and stop to get 
a drink, and mother finds a young woman here and 
begins asking questions ; how long has the young 
woman been married ; how many children she has ; 
and how much did they pay for the farm ; and winds 



'^-^ 



142 Fortune's Wheel 

up with the usual query : does the woman know where 
the berries grow in abundance? No, the woman does 
not, and we trudge on. But coming along home late in 
the day, we see this same woman climbing her own 
fence. She has a pail larger than ours and it is. full of 
nicer berries than we have found that day. I learn 
that people do not always tell the truth when ques- 
tioned too closely in regard to their own business, and 
this lesson sinks and takes root in my heart, and I 
resolve to not ask questions but try and find the truth 
some other way. Mother makes a different application 
entirely, for the next morning she is up earlier than 
usual, and taking one of the other children with her 
goes straight to that place and comes home at an early 
hour with a full pail or basket. 

The woman gets no good from not telling the truth, 
and mother is not cured of her fault of asking ques- 
tions. 

There was another thing about the berry-picking 
that annoyed me. When we would be coming home 
and find some nice bunches of catnip growing beside 
the way, mother made us gather it. It was good for 
many of the ills of childhood, and when we were sick 
these simple remedies were always resorted to, and 
altogether the weariness of the flesh, the heavy pail and 
the large bunches of catnip made us such conspicuous 
objects on the street that I revolted against it all. 
Nor was this all my trouble. All my life I have had 
a mortal fear of snakes. Perhaps I had heard too 
much of one that had made himself too agreeable and 
free with poor old mother, Eve ; for I knew better who 



Days Spent with Mother 143 

the first man and woman were when I was five years 
old than I do now, and the charming quahties of that 
creeping thing only filled me with horror. 

I used to think if Eve had been half as afraid of 
snakes as I was, the world would have been spared a 
great deal of misery. I am older now and do not 
speculate on such grave questions. 

Well I was afraid of snakes and mother did not 
care if I were. She probably knew there were no 
harmful snakes in the country, and they could not 
hurt me if they tried ; those little garter kind — that 
was the only kind I ever saw there — but to me they 
were awful. I really believe I was more afraid of 
snakes than I was of ghosts, and ghosts were the bane 
of my childhood. I would get down in the grass and 
pick as well as I could, and if one chanced to come 
along, which occasionally happened, I would fly as 
though pursued by a demon, and mount the highest 
stone I could find, and then sob and cry. 

In vain mother would tell me that snakes could run 
very swiftly, and probably that one had got to China 
at his high rate of speed, but I could not believe any 
such good thing had happened. 

I always came home tired and sick at heart. I did 
not like the berry-picking at all, and resolved again 
and again that when I was grown up and could do as 
I wanted to, I would never pick berries. 

These were days to be remembered all one's life, 
but not for rest and pleasure. I had not learned yet 
that life is made up of just such lights and shadows, 
and they are in all lives. Perhaps the shadow is not 



144 Fortune's Wheel 

trudging after berries, but I learned that it could be 
worse, and at this distance can smile very complacently 
over the trials of my childhood. 

There were four roads leading out from our village 
One went through the Scotch settlement, one the Irish 
settlement and one the French settlement; the fourth 
led to a city some miles distant. 

Mother knew every berry place along these roads. 

There were little creeks all over the country which 
would be dried up during the summer months, they 
were just the places for raspberries and snakes too. 
I could endure it some while I could stand on the bot- 
tom — which was dry sand — and reach out and gather 
from the bushes, but when I was obliged to get into the 
bushes, and could not see where I was stepping, I was 
a very miserable child. 

There was an old French woman, named Granny 
Pidgeon, who lived out from town about two miles. 
She had an only daughter. I never heard of any man 
being in the family. 

I will relate, a circumstance and it will explain the 
daughter's mental capacity, and how people looked 
upon this pair. 

One " Fourth of July " when there was a parade 
of " terribles," as they were called at that time, the 
women were shocked to see Rilley Pidgeon right in 
among the men, and knowing the poor thing was there 
by mistake went in to get her out, and it was only a 
man dressed up and so well representing Rilley that 
the women could not tell the difference a few feet 
away. 



11 



Days Spent with Mother 145 

If people could be so well represented now-a-days, 
some perplexing question would be put on a better 
basis right away. But then a man must have a great 
genius for it to be a good representative of others, and 
geniuses are born not made. 

Well Granny Pidgeon told fortunes, and told them 
with cards. And mother when going out on the road 
which led to the great city, and right past Granny's 
house, always stopped and had her fortune told. 

I wish I could paint Granny's picture, but I could 
never do her justice. She was very thin, there was 
not an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones, just 
enough to hold them together and keep them from 
rattling, when she moved about. She had deep sunken 
eyes, sharp weazened features, almost no hair, and 
looked exactly like pictures I have seen in Mother 
Goose of the old woman whose business it was to 
sweep the cobwebs off the sky. 

If there were witches in the semblance of human 
form Granny Pidgeon might have been one. I was 
always afraid of her, and when mother went in to have 
her fortune told and said to me " You stay out here 
and look at the posies," I always remained outside 
gladly, for I knew that Rilley would come out and 
together we would look at the flowers. And they 
were a simple lot, too, like all the rest of the living 
things around this queer little place. 

There was " Old morn " in a bunch by the crazy 
fence, and " posy beans " running up on tall poles 
which had been gathered in the woods near by, there 
were single holly-hocks and " four o'clocks " not open 



146 Fortune's Wheel 

though, for they keep their beauty for evening and 
sleep through the day Hke society belles, and there 
were morning glories all shut up and waiting to be 
kissed awake by their lover, the sun of the morning, 
and there were tall sunflowers which nodded familiarly 
if you brushed them in passing, and if you slyly looked 
up they returned the look with a broad stare. There 
were beds of herbs too, for Granny compounded 
strange decoctions to sell to foolish maidens, to give 
to young lovers, to work charms on them. These 
herbs were unlike anything mother raised in her gar- 
den, and I always felt that there was something potent 
in the herbs that might harm me so I never lingered 
long to look at them. 

Rilley, herself, deserves special notice. She had a 
round moon face and wore large gold hoops in her 
ears. Rilley had two virtues, she always wore a smile, 
and there 'has been something written lately about the 
virtue of stupidity — well Rilley had that virtue too. 
She was only a child. To be sure she was thirty or 
thirty-five years old, but had she lived to the age of 
Methuselah she Would have been a child still. She 
had not been endowed with the developing principle, 
and was just one of God's innocents. Sometimes she 
would come to the village, and when she did she 
brought her two virtues, her smile and her stupidity. 
She would sit on the ground and watch our games, 
and seemed to enjoy them too. 

She could talk but she did not indulge in idle gossip, 
she was not interested in it and had nothing to say. 
She was an appreciative listener, always approving 



Days Spent with Mother 147 

with her smile, hut never tried to continue the con- 
versation by argument on either side. 

To us she seemed quite wonderful while we were 
young, but we discovered her defects when we were 
older, and stamped her accordingly '' foolish Rilley 
Pidgeon." 

Their house was a queer little arrangement too. It 
was built of boards standing on end, there was a peaked 
roof and a stove pipe sticking out through one side; 
two small windows, one in front and one in the back 
directly opposite, so one in passing could see through 
the house, and everything they possessed of this 
world's goods was kept in this small house of one 
room about fourteen feet square. 

In passing the door I could see mother and Granny, 
the cards spread out before them, the eager, anxious 
look on mother's face filled me with apprehension. 

I suppose she- really thought Granny could tell the 
future, and people are anxious to know how things 
are going to be. 

Poor mother ! her future came and brought disaster, 
and for all of Granny's telling her she was not prepared, 
so the fortune telling did no good. 

When Granny had finished the fortune telling 
mother would come out, and I would say good-bye to 
Rilley and receive her smile in return, and then trudge 
along at mother's side, but before going very far she 
would say to me " you need not tell your father, nor 
your grandmother, and, further, you need not men- 
tion it at home at all." Somehow there was something 
so convincing about mother that I usually kept the 



148 Fortune^s Wheel 

secret. I can look back from this distance thoug^h and 
see why she did not want them to know. People in 
that day thought cards a device of Satan to lure un- 
suspecting souls to their destruction. ' 

There were talcs told of things that had happened 
through card playing, that were nearly, if not quite 
as bad, as any ghostly experience any one had ever 
had. I will relate just two of these stories and you 
will get an idea of the trend of all. 

Once upon a time four men had taken a tiny bit of 
candle and pack of cards and gone into a room to play, 
saying they would play until the candle burnt out. But 
when broad day came the candle was there burning 
just the same, had not been consumed in the least. 
.The men by this time began to realize how tightly 
they were being held in the grasp of the tempter of 
human souls, and forsook their foolish course, and 
sought refuge in prayer and penance and were saved. 

Another poor man was not so fortunate. He was 
addicted to the habit of spending his evenings away 
from home, and in the company of bad men who were 
card players. He dreamed one night that he had been 
playing till late and came home, and in the dark opened 
the cellar door instead of the chamber door and fell 
down cellar and broke his neck. He found himself 
among a lot of men who wore good clothes, but all 
had such a look of pain on their faces that it filled him 
with dread. He asked one man what was the matter 
that he seemed to be suffering so, and the man opened 
his coat and showed him the blue sulphur flames play- 
ing around his body all the time. There was no rest 



Days Spent with Mother 149 

from it, and for all eternity that must ^o on as a 
punishment for card playing. 

The poor man awoke in the morning a reformed 
man — so he thought — told his v/ife his experiences of 
the night and said he would never play again. But 
when night came he forgot his promises and expe- 
riences of the night too and went forth and sought his 
boon companions and played and came home late, and 
in the dark opened the cellar door instead of his cham- 
ber door and fell down cellar and broke his neck. 
And seeing one part of the dream was true the people 
all knew he had reached the place where the brim- 
stone blazes were playing around the bodies of dead 
card players and believers in cards. 

That was the reason mother did not mention her 
visits to Granny Pidgeon at home. Our father would 
never approve of anything which had Ijeen done with 
cards. 

Mother was a hard, practical woman, and if any one 
had said to her, you will get harmed if you put gun- 
powder on coals, she would — the first time she was 
alone — have tried it just to see what would happen. 

Mother believed all the old yarns of the long ago, 
but she was not afraid of anything and gladly experi- 
mented whenever she could, just to see if old theories 
held good. 



CHAPTER XIII 

EXCURSIONS 

The Episcopal Sunday school gives its annual picnic 
to-day and all is bustle and excitement. We did not 
sleep well last night and were up at an early hour to 
look out and see how the weather promises. It is fine 
and we are happy. 

We are to meet at Mr. Dewey's corner and start at 
ten sharp for the island. 

The clock hands are never so slow as on picnic and 
excursion days ; not even so slow when we are sitting 
for grandmother to earn a copper, and finally we can 
wait no longer and start. We find ourselves among 
the earliest arrivals, not more than nine by clock, I 
guess, but, then, what matter ! We can watch the other 
arrivals and see how each is dressed. We have on 
neat calico frocks, white petticoats and stockings, stout 
shoes and a straw or chip hat. We have not arrived 
at the age where clothes make much difference to us. 
It is pleasure, pure and simple, we are seeking, and 
the joys of childhood are so few with us that what we 
have on does not make us unhappy. And besides 
common people do not dress over well, and one is not 
trying to outshine everyone else. 

We have one thing to annoy us. We always have 
that. My sister carries our lunch basket, a neat look- 

150 



Excursions ijl 

ing one and large too, the towel is snowy and it all looks 
nice from the outside, jjut, oh, dear, it is the contents 
that annoys us. Other girls come and lift the covers 
of their basket, and their nice sweet cakes all covered 
with sugar and little red and yellow candies on top 
for trimming are displayed. One shows cookies with 
a raisin in the center of each, and they ask what we 
have. My sister clutches the basket very tightly and 
will not let them see and T won't tell. We feel it 
baflly enough and think that mother might, once in a 
while, let us have something else, but she never does, 
and if we go we must take that and we would not stay 
away if it were much worse. 

At ten o'clock we are all ready and go over the 
bridge and cross to the opposite side of the island 
and settle down on the bank right by the rapids. 

Oh, those lovely days ! I feel my heart swelling 
with emotion now at thought of them. Joys vanished 
forever; days gone never to return, but their influence 
is living still. 

The gentlemen climb trees and arrange several 
swings, then they make preparations for dinner. 

We, the children, run to the water's edge but we do 
not play in the water there. It is too terrible and we 
would be drawn in. We are told to enjoy all we can 
on the island, and ju.st look at the beautiful river. 

A steamer is in the canal, on the Canadian side, on 
her way to the Great Lakes. How small she looks 
from where we are, for the river is very wide. If she 
were going down her movements would be different. 
We will see one going down before the day is done. 



152 Fortune's Wheel 

We gather any moss or queer twig we find, and some 
one tells us about them. One boy finds a bird's nest, 
but he does not offer to take the eggs. , There are too 
many eyes watching him. 

We feel curious about the lunch baskets and hope 
they won't really know which is ours when they begin 
sorting the good things and getting them ready for 
dinner. 

Two ladies of the committee seize our basket and 
lift the cover— we feel like shrinking into nothing but 
cannot take our eyes off their faces— and a little ex- 
clamation of delight burst from them. Oh, how nice! 
they say. What do you suppose it was? It was two 
dozen of baked apples, and the very nicest ones for 
bakmg too. But we do not like baked apples for 
picnics. We want sweet cakes and candy. Mother 
knows that a hungry gentleman would rather have a 
piece of good bread and butter and a nice baked 
apple than all the sweet cakes with red and yellow 
candy. We do not know that. We only know that 
we never have- any to carry home. Somehow after 
the secret is out we feel better and enjoy ourselves 
accordingly. 

We see several steamers on their way down during 
the day. Oh, my ! how fast they go and are soon lost 
to sight. One raft of timber goes down too, that is 
more curious to us, and we see many things to ask 
questions about. 

Late in the day the swings are taken dov/n, the bas- 
kets gathered up, and when all is ready we trudge home 
ready for the next excursion or picnic that comes 



Excursions 1 53 

along, and so far as I am concerned do not have to 
wait long. 

Father spends most of his time on the river in the 
summer. He has done that way all his life, and no 
man in the whole country knows the currents and 
shoal better than he. Gentlemen who come to spend 
their vacation and fish, or gentlemen of leisure who 
have nothing else to do but fish come, for the river has 
an abundance of the finny tribes, and these men all 
know father and trust him. 

One of the most dangerous trips on the river is to 
go through the rapids in a small rowboat. Father 
owns two of the very lightest the river will carry and 
not crush. They are painted — on the outside — white 
and trimmed with green, the inside is a soft dove 
color. 

Father gets a dollar each for taking persons through 
the rapids. When he spends the day fishing with 
these gentlemen, they pay him two dollars for the 
entire day. These gentlemen know there is no danger 
in fishing, but shooting the rapids is a feat not many 
can do so well as father, and they pay him accordingly. 

Well he is going to take a gentleman and his young 
wife through the rapids, and has promised me that 
if I will be a good girl I may go too. I promise and 
am happy, for a day spent with him is always a 
pleasure. 

After dinner we go to the wharf and get the boat 
ready and then row to the dam, there we are joined by 
my brother and another man and they help, and 
the boat is lifted up and carried over the dam and 



154 Fortune's Wheel 

launched in the water above. Then we row to the 
bridge and the gentleman and lady are there. We take 
them on board our tiny craft and father rows to the 
head of the island, one and a half miles away. 

The scenery on either side is fine. The banks are 
low for the dam holds the water, and the river re- 
sembles a huge mill pond. The manor house stands 
out m bold relief and looks very grand and imposing. 
We reach the head of the island and see an Indian 
encampment there. They belong to the tribe known 
as the St. Regis Indians. The squaws wear dresses 
of broadcloth with bright bands around the bottom. 
They have blankets of the same material. They offer 
for sale in the village, baskets and bead ornaments. 
I have a bead bag nearly a half century old made by 
a member of this tribe. 

We row down stream a little way and father rests 
on his oars to let us watch the great ocean steamer. 
She is gomg to shoot the rapids too. It is all over in 
a mmute and she is lost to sight. Now we get every- 
thing ready for the dangerous descent. The gentleman 
and lady occupy the forward seats for they are the 
prominent ones of the party. I sit close to father as 
I can, and not interfere with his management of the 
boat. All is ready, and a stroke of the oar changes 
everything. The river which had been, so far on the 
journey, as smooth as glass, now looks like a monster 
m a terrible passion. The tiny skiff strikes the boilers 
and trembles like a living thing in the clutch of a 
demon, for only an instant though, for we are thrown 
out and on like a feather in a whirlwind. The spray 



Excursions 155 

dashes over us, everything seems sweeping along in a 
mad race, and we feel that we are rushing on to de- 
struction. We take very little note of anything on 
the island or distant mainland. The whole world 
seems to be water, and that in a tremendous passion 
eager to engulf us. The tiny skiff rises and falls with 
the onward, rushing, rolling, tumbling, seething, glit- 
tering, frothing, twisting, speeding, rocking, hissing, 
battling, roaring, raving, struggling but ever advanc- 
ing water. There is nothing to do but to sit still and 
trust the man at the oars. He alone can save us now. 
One false stroke of the oar, one untrue swerve of the 
boat and we would be plunged into eternity through 
those battling waters. But the man at the oars knows 
the demon who would crush him and his precious load 
of human lives, and he fears him not. His nerves are 
steady, his arm strong, and he will carry us in safety 
through. 

It is all over in a few minutes and we run into smooth 
water three miles down stream. W'e all drink in a 
deep breath and feel that we have had an experience 
of a life time. 

Father swings the boat around and rows past Canada 
island over to the American side where the water is as 
smooth as though no ripple ever disturbed its surface. 

It is a long way home and the gentleman puts out a 
trolling line. There is always one in the boat, and on the 
way home catches some fine fish. It is near night when 
we reach the little wharf where our boat is kept. The 
gentleman and lady go away after saying: it was the 
greatest pleasure they had ever experienced on any 



156 Fortune's Wheel 

excursion. And again father and I, hand in hand, 
climb the hill home. Another day never to be for- 
gotten. 

My next excursion is when the Presbyterians give 
their annual outing. This time we are to go twenty 
miles down the river and picnic in the woods some- 
where away back near the Grand Trunk R. R. We 
meet at an early hour at the church. We have our 
usual lunch of baked apples and the same annoyance. 
We lived to see the day that we would have given any- 
thing for a look at them even. 

This time I notice something strange. While sitting 
on the church steps I look up, the sky is blue and white 
fleecy clouds are floating overhead ; and the moon is 
there too. Such a queer thing ; I never knew before 
that the moon could be seen in the daytime. I ha4 
always heard that the moon was to give light by night. 
Why was' it there in the daytime? Were there two 
moons ? I knew that some nights were dark even 
when there were no clouds; but I had never thought 
of the moon not being there; and now another and 
new idea gets into my head. What is all this about? 
I shall find out. But no one in my family can tell me. 
They only know that the world is flat and stands on a 
foundation ; but where the foundation is they cannot 
tell. But I speculate and keep on asking questions, 
and later find out that the world moves, and other 
heavenly bodies move too. I am told to be very care- 
ful and not ask too many questions. It is dangerous 
to ask too many questions — they tell me. I find out 



Excursions 1 57 

though, all in good time, for everything comes to him 
who waits, and whose heart is open to the truth. 

The people collect and when all are ready we go to 
the wharf where the steamer is waiting. When all 
are on board we move off and start down stream. 
Then there is a great shouting from the land and look- 
ing back we see several persons — who are always late 
— running and shouting for us to come back and take 
them on board. The boat is turned round and back 
we go and take them on, though we feel like scolding. 
This time we start and are not recalled. 

A delightful day is spent. We see many things of 
interest, among others a black bear chained to a post, 
in a yard we were passing on our way from the boat 
to the woods where we picnic. We see trains running 
along on the Grand Trunk, and they interest us, for we 
have no railroad in our village. We have the beautiful 
river. On the way home, one girl loses her hat and 
gets home bare-headed. The captain and superin- 
tendent discuss the subject of going up through the 
canal and coming down through the rapids, which 
finally ends in going straight home. The cargo is too 
precious and the rapids very dangerous, and excursions 
even in those days did not always end well. But this 
time no accident occurs, and in the late afternoon we 
are landed at the tiny wharf and the excursions for 
the season ended. 



I 



CHAPTER XIV 

MEMORIES OF THE OLD HOUSE 

The house in which my childhood was passed, was 
built by my grandfather, nearly a century ago, and 
consequently was but a simple old-fashioned dwelling. 
There were eight rooms, a hall, pantry and two rooms 
called linterns. They extended on either side of the 
chamber from the front to the extreme back end of the 
house, and were full of all kinds of boxes, drawers, 
cedar chests, and cupboards, and all of them full of 
clothing long gone out of date, quilts, and old-fash- 
ioned bed spreads, and all kinds of odds and ends 
handed down from two or three generations. 

Whenever there was a '* parade of terribles " — as 
they were called then — they always came to us for 
clothing, and we could fit them out in almost any style 
they wanted. Tall, old plug-hats, long or short tailed 
coats, cravats and knee breeches, in fact nearly any- 
thing they needed in the way of garments of uncer- 
tain age and antique fashion. 

If my mother had taken care of these garments they 
would have been quite a fortune to her surviving chil- 
dren; but in her day people had begun to want new 
things and cared very little for the old if they could 
get new. 

That was the era of quilts and feather beds. My 

IS8 



Memories of the Old House 159 

mother had seven feather beds and I guess seven times 
seven homemade quilts, including homemade bed 
spreads. 

This house did not come to mother as an inheritance, 
she took care of her father and mother and our great- 
grandmother, and their household effects came to 
mother with the old house, and the household effects 
of long ago consisted greatly of bedding and boxes to 
keep it packed away in. 

We used to light a candle and go into the old lin- 
terns and look over those queer old garments, and 
dress up in them, and imagine we were living in an- 
other age of the world. This was one way we had to 
amuse ourselves when mother was away from home. 
She never let us do these things when she was there. 

It is a wonder we did not set fire to the house, for 
the rubbish was as dry as tinder, and we were as care- 
less a lot as ever got into mischief. 

There were two rooms above beside these lintems, 
and here we children slept, and these rooms were the 
scene of many a battle fought with pillows, and rough 
and tumble combat, mostly on the sly though, for ever 
since I can remember older people seem to think that 
little children should be quiet and not do anything as 
they want to — but just get old heads on young shoul- 
ders. 

We managed to get a good deal of fun out of life, 
but it was generally clouded with tears. Light and 
shade. I have found it thus ever; a dark cloud and 
silver lining. A streak of dazzling light, then the deep 
shadow. 



i6o Fortune's Wheel 

Truly God knows best. If it were all light we 
would be unfitted to live. If it were all shadow we 
would sink in despair. 

We had a parlor which was furnished and adorned 
in the simplest manner, but a parlor for all that, and 
it gave us a feeling of satisfaction that we had one 
room too good to be used every day. The floor was 
covered with a bright rag carpet, the rags cut and 
sewed by mother's own hand. The windows, three in 
number, had each twelve panes of glass and were cur- 
tained with dark green paper shades. 

There was only one picture on the wall, and that a 
queer one for such a place. It was a picture of a 
graveyard, and there were weeping willows — and 
pines — scattered about, and many graves could be seen. 
But the central attraction of the picture were a woman 
and child. The woman was dressed in deep mourning, 
and was weeping, while the boy stood watching her 
with a look of deep pain on his childish face. We 
prized this picture, for it was the only one we owned 
excepting the one in grandmother's room of the " Bat- 
tle of Bunker Hill." 

In the parlor were a long box stove, six wooden 
chairs, and a cherry table. Over the table hung a 
large looking glass. If a departed loved one were 
lying there all peaceful and still, waiting for the final 
resting place, the looking glass would be covered with 
a white cloth to keep out the reflection. 

People in my walk in life thought, if a dead body 
were reflected in a mirror, another would go from that 
household that same year. 



Memories of the Old House i6i 

There had been loved ones lying there all peaceful 
and still, and we had seen the glass with its face hidden 
several times. But they had been grandparents, aunts 
and uncles, and these had not touched our young life 
like the loss of one of our own little band, and we 
always looked at the covered mirror with awe and 
hoped it would never be hidden for one of us. And 
so far as that glass was concerned, it never was. For 
none of our little band ever lay in state in the dear 
old room that we thought so fine in our childhood. 

The spare bedroom opened off the parlor. It had 
one window with a paper shade and muslin curtains 
too, a simple bed, one chair, a little table with a few 
simple toilet articles placed in regular order on the top, 
a few hooks in the wall at the foot of the bed to hang 
dresses on, the Sunday ones, and a rag carpet on the 
floor, completed the furnishing of this room. 

Then there were the hall and stairway, and a dark 
cupboard where were kept some dishes — of the old 
willow pattern, blue willow trees and other figures. 
These had come to mother too with the other things 
belonging to her ancestors, not by inheritance but be- 
cause she took care of them. 

Mother always said she worked and earned every- 
thing, and even in this story would not wish me to say 
otherwise. 

There was a bedroom ofif from the hall, and here 
my grandfather used to sleep, and it was from there 
he was carried into the parlor to await the final resting 
place. 

Then there was the large living room, and no oma- 



1 62 Fortune's Wheel 

ment in it other than the spinning wheel, reel and swifts. 
I have seen mother walk backward and forward by 
the hour spinning yam — the rolls — she never carded — 
lying on the wheel frame, and how strange it seemed 
to me to see her take a roll and touch it to the short 
end hanging from the spindle and then give the wheel 
a turn and backward she would walk and the yarn 
would spin out ever so long; then with another turn 
of the wheel the yam would wind up on the spindle, 
and when the spindle was full she would run it on the 
reel. It had some kind of clock-like arrangement, and 
when forty threads were on it would ' click and she 
would put a piece of yarn around, thus forming a knot : 
forty threads to a knot, ten knots to a skein. We 
children always had the winding into balls to do. 
When it was spun, washed and colored, mother would 
put the' skeins on the swifts and we would sit down 
and wind and the swifts would run round and round, 
and the faster we could wind the swifter the swifts 
would run. 

I never learned to spin but did learn to double and 
twist and knit too. At our house mother worked. She 
said it was harder for her to get work out of little 
children than it was to do it herself. She had a sister 
who thought differently. 

We always had our meals in this large living 
room, consequently the cupboard, table and chairs were 
here too, the only furniture in the room. There were 
two windows in this room, a hop vine ran up and 
covered one and a large bunch of sweet brier grew by 



Memories of the Old House 163 

the other, and when the window was open the odor 
from that sweet brier filled the room with fragrance. 

In the cupboard were the simplest things for table 
use, common steel knives and forks and simple cheap 
crockery, and many a time we sat at the table to eat 
with no cloth on, but that was the style among common 
folks in that day. 

In mother's room were the two beds, a bureau, stand 
and generally two chairs. I must not forget the floor 
of the hall and hall bedroom, they were painted yellow 
and had large, round, blue spots at regular intervals 
all over and looked pretty, much prettier we thought 
than any carpet ever could ; the spots gave a tone to the 
rooms that simple yellow paint could never impart. 
And then there was the big cook room or common 
work room. In it most of the work was done. There 
was a sort of double pantry off from this room where 
all sorts of odds and ends were kept ; candle moulds 
and old candlesticks, and snuffers, tongs, shovels 
and old gridirons, a hand stove that great-grand- 
mother used to have carried to church with her in the 
winter when she was younger before she became an 
invalid, and the little spider for the shoe grease — the 
hair grease was kept in a fine dish — for shoes and hair 
were greased regularly in those days. In most fami- 
lies the mother would call up the children and take a 
little piece of butter on her hand and rub it, and thus 
get it warm enough to spread and then rub it on the 
child's hair, and pat and rub it down until it was 
greased to her mind, and how funny the child looked 



164 Fortune's Wheel 

after the greasing process. Little girls had their hair 
cut off straight across the neck just below the ends 
of the ears, and there was never a curl, and after the 
greasing the hair looked straight, damp and plastered, 
down to the head. Shoes were greased much in the 
same way, only a cheaper grease was used. 

In our common work room were the big table and 
bread trough and dye pot, too, for the housewife did 
all her own coloring in that day among the common 
folks. In this room they washed and ironed, brewed 
and baked, and did their coloring too. 

I will tell some of the things mother' used to cook 
for father : he was Dutch and had an appetite for queer 
things and we taking after him, liked the things he did 
when mother got them ready. 

Boiled sauerkraut and pork was one. Sometimes 
she made a dish this way: put a piece of pork on to 
boil, later put in dried apples, and still later in the 
last stage put in dumplings made of some dough mix- 
ture — I do not know the recipe — this dish he called 
" snitchers and clays." Then she cleaned tripe and cut 
it up in long wide strips and made great dumpling- 
like things by using layers of pork and beef and season- 
ing with salt and pepper, then she sewed them up with 
stout thread and boiled them until she could run a 
straw through them, then put them in vinegar to pickle. 
These he called ruUagers. They were nice sliced and 
eaten cold at supper. 

She always made a hundred weight tub full of cider 
apple sauce and this was nice on our bread between 
meals. And father always wanted buttermilk soup 



Memories of the Old House 165 

every time mother churned. We had a cow, there were 
so many of us we could not Hve without one, and she 
could run around on the street anywhere — no one ever 
complained that I can remember, cows were free com- 
moners in those days, and good it was for us that they 
were. Buttermilk soup was made this way : put a 
piece of butter in a kettle to brown, then put in some 
bread cut in pieces the size of dice, let them brown, 
put in the amount of buttermilk wanted, let it come to 
a boil, sweeten and season with allspice, serve hot. 

My father was very fond of this dish. There were 
many other queer strange dishes that she used to make 
for him, but this is enough to show that the appetite 
has changed with the times, and boiled pork and dried 
apples would hardly be tolerated now, let alone being 
enjoyed. People have so much now they hardly know 
how to appreciate their privileges. 

There was a great platform at the back door, and 
there were the cistern and well. The well was forty- 
six feet deep and just as round as anything could be, 
lined up with stones, and when we heard any one tell- 
ing riddles and tell this one " round as an apple, deep 
as a cup, all the king's oxen cannot draw it up," we 
knew the answer for our well was just that way. 

The old house was all plastered and painted inside, 
but outside the doors and casings were the only things 
painted, and the elements had turned the old house a 
soft dull grey. We liked every nook and cranny of it, 
i though our life in it was far from being all sunshine. 

The v/hipping of children was a great fault in that 
day. All mothers did it and many fathers did it too. 



1 66 Fortune*s Wheel 

Our father had faults no doubt but being unkind to 
his children was not one. Sometimes he whipped the 
boys but not often though, and he never touched the 
girls only in the way of tender caress, 'and when he 
came in we all sprung for him and were caught up 
and lifted to the ceiling or perched on his shoulder. 
Dear father, his was a tender heart and he loved the 
gentle, quiet things of life. Of course he was just a 
simple uneducated man, but kind and true for all of 
that. Education does not always make people true. 

Mother's spirit was something like her old Puritan 
ancestor. Miles Standish, when he planted the cannon 
on the little church roof and said, it would be a con- 
vincing argument in converting the Indians. Mother 
had a way of convincing every one in her household ; 
but she did many things for our comfort, we were 
kept cle^n and whole and had plenty of good, whole- 
some food to eat. And we were a sturdy lot in our 
young days. There were twelve in all, but seven are 
sleeping, life's restless fever o'er; but none of them in 
the little grave yard where the pines sing their mourn- 
ful requiem for the dead, but far from the scene of our 
earliest childhood's joys, griefs, happiness and dis- 
cipline. 

Two died at thirty-two, the other five before they 
were twenty, and it is well. God knows best and I 
feel that I shall join them one day in that land where 
dreams play no part but all is reality and joy and 
progress forever. Seth the black sheep of our flock 
died at thirty-two, but through suffering and loss of 
those dearest to the human heart he had found rest in 



Memories of the Old House 167 

God and went gladly and willingly and knew for a 
certainty that through suffering the human is lifted 
toward the divine, and the only life worth living at 
all is a life of loving sympathy toward suffering and 
undeveloped humanity. 

There was a large stone cellar under the old house, 
and in the autumn it was filled with things for the 
winter's use. Father liked cabbage well enough to 
raise a good supply ; a barrel of kraut was always 
made, and we raised bushels of apples and other 
garden products. So we always had an abundance of 
common food. Our family library consisted of a 
Bible and several testaments. I cannot recall any other 
book on any subject excepting a medical one kept un- 
der lock and key. I shall never forget the look of 
horror on mother's face when she found us one day 
with this book in our hands, and we examining the 
queer wood cuts found therein. We never saw it 
again. 

The Bible was read by father every morning and 
evening when he was home, and a prayer was offered, 
we all kneeling. 

The literature of our family consisted in stories 
told, and it would have been much better for us if we 
had never heard some of them. They were strange, 
queer, ghostly stories only serving to excite the minds 
of little children. Of course we had a few school 
books. An old elementary speller combining both 
reading and spelling came first, and as we advanced 
others came. I cannot forget my joy when the Na- 
tional reader came, and can repeat now many of the 



1 68 Fortune's Wheel 

stories found in that dear old book, my National 
fourth reader. It was in that book I got my first 
ghmpse of Washington Irving, Longfellow and other 
authors dear to the heart of every book-loving Ameri- 
can boy and girl. 

But books played no part in our household- what- 
ever. Father would have looked upon a story as a 
device of Satan to lure unsuspecting souls to their de- 
struction, and mother had no time to read, and beside 
it was much less trouble to pick up information from 
others than to spend time reading. So she found out 
all she wanted to know by asking questions. Though 
I sometimes doubted the truth of the answers she got, 
but it was a satisfaction to her and saved her lots of 
trouble which she would have had if she had read for 
herself. 



CHAPTER XV 

SPOOK LORE AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE 

I WONDER what life would have been like in the 
olden time without its haunted houses, ghost stories, 
and fairy tales. We youngsters had our full share, 
for father was a descendant of the old Knickerbockers 
of New York, and was as full of spook lore as he could 
be, and it needed only a very little urging to set him 
story-telling. 

He had two friends who would drop in of a win- 
ter's evening, one a little old Scotch tailor who was as 
full of Scotch lore as father was of Dutch, and the 
other a gentleman from the Emerald Isle who never 
ran down on the fairy stories. How could he? He 
had lived right among them and had watched their 
gambols many a time. 

Together they formed a happy trio. Irish, Scotch, 
and Dutch. We would have a pitcher of sweet cider, 
a dish of rosy-cheeked apples, and a crackling fire, 
then the stories, fairy, ghost, and spook, made sad 
havoc with our nervous systems. 

Did we really believe them ? Yes, we thought every 
one true, and I believe the tellers did themselves. Those 
stories were as true and real to them as the myths 
must have been to the Ancients. 

169 



lyo Fortune's Wheel 

If I tell a few it won't do any harm, for folks are 
wiser now and know that such things could never have 
existed only in the imagination of a primitive people. 

I used to say I would never let my children hear 
those old stories, but they have been told to them over 
and over again ; only in the telling I always made a 
point of saying: These stories are not true and never 
could have been ; but this is the way the literature of 
a nation begins — ^by men telling stories. 

Father was born and brought up in Canada, in the 
province of Quebec, among the Dutch pioneers of the 
early time. He belonged to them and inherited all 
their peculiar mental training and did not differ from 
them in the least. How could he help believing their 
tales ? 

He used to tell of a woman and her daughter who 
were witches and could turn themselves into anything 
they wished to, and many a time when two old cronies 
would be sitting on the back steps, telling this, that, and 
the other about some neighbor, a big, black cat would 
jump right through the fence where there was neither 
crack nor crevice for her to. get through, and the next 
day everyone would know just what the old gossips 
had said. 

For why not? the old witch had turned herself into 
a cat and listened only to repeat the tale and make 
mischief. 

I never heard father say that scandal died out be- 
cause there was a cat to carry the news. 

One day a hunter bold, with dog and gun found 
two deer tracks and followed them for several miles, 



Spook Lore and the Haunted House 171 

only to come up to the old woman and her daughter 
sitting on a fence to rest, and they were laughing at the 
sorry chase they had led him by turning themselves 
into deer. 

If he had been angry enough to have shot at them, 
he could not have hurt them, for no one could kill a 
witch that way. They always had to be hanged, 
drowned, or burnt alive. Those three methods of 
taking off were always effectual. 

Once when father was young and engaged in boil- 
ing down maple sap for sugar, the old witch came to 
him in the form of a partridge and sat on a log near 
the sugar camp and drummed. Father shot at her sev- 
eral times, and sometimes would knock her off the log 
and the feathers would fly around, but the old partridge 
would return and keep on drumming. Finally it 
dawned on him what it was, and knowing he could 
not kill her with a bullet, let her alone. 

He used to tell strange, queer tales of a certain Gen- 
eral Waldimer, an English officer living in the back- 
woods of Canada, an exile from his native land. The 
British government wanted him for some high treason 
which he had committed, but they could not catch him, 
for he had a way of making himself invisible. He had 
a book of " Black Magic," and could do many strange 
things. 

One day a man who had been trying for a long time 
to get possession of the book, secured it and hid him- 
self in a wood near by and opening the book began 
reading the strange things he found therein. He be- 
came so interested in what he was reading that he did 



172 Fortune's Wheel 

not notice what was going on around him; for crows 
began collecting by thousands, the air was full of them. 
He was rudely awakened from his pleasure by the old 
General snatching the book from his hand', and opening 
it at another place began reading, and the crows as 
suddenly disappeared. Then giving the man a .sound 
reproof for meddling with whalfhe did not understand 
left him a sadder but not wiser man. 

General Waldimer could go out in the open field and 
sit quietly down and begin to read this book, and a deer 
would walk up to him and stand waiting to be shot. 
It was said that Satan held the deer by the horns, for 
he was in league with him. In those days men were 
frequently in league with the devil. We are glad that 
that has gone out of fashion. 

General Waldimer had a little pill which, when 
placed under his tongue, made him invisible, and once 
when he was seen to enter a house in a wood, the 
" Red coats " surrounded the house and thought they 
had him fast. But he, seeing them through the win- 
dows at the ends of the house, put his pill under his 
tongue and gathered up his papers so as to leave no 
trace behind him, and walked about among the soldiers, 
they never seeing him for he was invisible. 

Father would generally end his story telling by tell- 
ing how his father once in company of several men 
had to spend the night in a little inn in a lonely wood, 
and General Waldimer was one of the company. As 
time hung heavily on their hands, they asked the Gen- 
eral to perform some trick of magic for their amuse- 
ment. He told them if they would promise to not 



spook Lore and the Haunted House 173 

meddle with anything they saw, he w^ould. He took 
from his pocket an acorn, and cutting a hole in the 
rough table around which they were sitting, he planted 
the acorn therein. Soon it sprouted and began to 
grow, and kept growing until soon there was a minia- 
ture oak tree complete in all its parts before them. 
They heard a sound like something dropping to the 
table, and there stood a very tiny man with shirt sleeves 
rolled up, as though ready for work. He was stand- 
ing on the edge of the table, and had an axe on his 
shoulder. He surveyed the tree with critical eye 
as though measuring its size and trying to locate its 
position when down, then fell to work and soon felled 
the tree which made a loud swish of sound in the room 
as it fell. 

While he was chopping, a chip flew into one man's 
lap, and he forgetting his promise, picked it up, and 
putting it in his pocket thought that he would examine 
it by daylight. 

The man chopped the tree up into lengths and piled 
them, then cut and piled up the branches, and finally 
began and gathered the chips and put them in a pile 
too. But something was wrong, for he began running 
from side to side and looking at everyone. Finally the 
old general said, '' Someone has something that be- 
longs to him, and you had better give it up," and taking 
the chip from his pocket, the man threw it on the 
table, and like the snuff of a candle everything was 
changed and there was only a big warty toad sitting 
on the table blinking at the crowd. 

There were men there who could face British ball 



4 



174 



Fortune's Wheel 



and bayonet, but not one stout enough of heart to ask 
the toad what it wanted. 

At this point father would reach out and take the 
apple that had been set to roasting for him while he 
was story telling. 

Then the Scotch tailor would begin, and tell of old 
burying grounds near lonely woods, and the strange 
and awful things which befell belated travelers passing 
that way ; of goblins peeping out from behind trees at 
passers-by; and how he saw a quivering line of light 
once and it had turned into a woman all dressed in 
white with arms extended toward heaven. He had 
lived through it and his hair had not turned grey, but 
it had been a mystery how he had escaped. He would 
t^ll of a certain piece of woods called Blythe's woods, 
not far from our village, where on any moonlight 
night at a certain hour one could see a horse rushing 
madly along the road guided by an invisible rider. 
The reason they knew he had a rider was that a row of 
bright brass buttons could be seen which fastened his 
coat, and the reins were held up tightly as though by 
some guiding hand. 

There was a little girl named Nellie Blythe who 
came to our church. She came in from the country 
and I would look at her and feel sorry and wonder 
did she know how dangerous those woods were. Did 
she know what a terrible spectre haunted them? I 
think this story had the worst effect on my nerves of 
any they told. A ghost that could not be seen, only 
the buttons on his coat, was awful to me. 

At this point the tailor would reach out and take a 



Spook Lore and the Haunted House 175 

glass of cider- — he had been known to drink stronger 
things — and while he would be drying his lips prefa- 
tory to going on, the gentleman from the Emerald 
Isle would take up the time by telling of fairies and 
elves and of bog and dell where they held their nightly 
revels. He had seen them many a time sitting under 
great toad-stools and climbing the stalks of flowers 
and showering petals on the passersby. 

These were not grewsome things like the ghosts, but 
they were to be feared, for they were playing pranks 
on someone all the time. Yes they had played a mean 
prank on him once. He had his eye on a bright lass 
and made love to her and intended to lead her to the 
priest some day, but when these fairies found him 
going there to see her they came around him in great 
numbers and climbed on his back, pulled his hair, 
hid in his pockets and tumbled him about until he was 
not fit to be seen. Then when he got where his sweet- 
heart was, they came down the rude chimney and sat 
in a corner and made such sport of him that finally he 
gave up going there entirely, and it all ended in his 
leaving Old Ireland, and he hoped he would never set 
his foot in it again. 

Sometimes during these recitals we would feel a 
fever heat, as though our blood ran wild, and again it 
seemed that we were frozen in our chairs, and many a 
time have I seen my eldest sister move her chair a 
little nearer the center of the room and mother would 
say, '' Come children, it is time for you to go to bed," 
and we would be sent off without delay. Our only 
light, a feeble tallow candle whose flickering flame 



176 Fortune's Wheel 

cast phantom shadows in every corner of the old 
chamber. We would tumble into bed, cover our heads 
and dream over the tales told by the old chimney. 

You could never have understood how we felt about 
the haunted house if I had not told you a few of these 
stories (and only a few). I believe I could fill a 
volume, and that a large one too, and still have some 
left to start another. 

These stories were the bane of our childhood. 
Our every act was controlled by them, and we loved 
the daylight, feeling safer at that time ; for ghosts do 
their walking abroad at night. The haunted house 
stood on a corner in a central part of the village ; but 
open to the river where the moon when full could light 
up the great windows almost as bright as an electrical 
display. 

I have a suspicion that the poor moon was some in 
fault that the house was haunted at all, but this is only 
a modern innovation. 

Well away back in the early time an Ogden had built 
the big house for his own occupancy, and it was a fine, 
large house. He must have been a rich man in this 
world's goods, but poor indeed in soul development. 
He had an uncontrollable temper, and once when he be- 
came very angry with a negro boy he owned as a slave, 
he rushed at him in the great front hall and knocked 
out his brains with a stick of wood, and the murdered 
boy's blood was spattered around on the wall and could 
never be washed out. Any one could see it there any 
day. 



Spook Lore and the Haunted House 177 

There was no danger of our going there to see and 
examine the spot, for the poor boy's ghost had haunted 
the place ever since, and we always gave that place a 
good letting alone. 

"We had seen the windows lighted up, but we were in 
company of so many persons that a spirit would not 
have had a ghost of a chance to appear. They never 
appear to large crowds. 

A young English gentleman who came there one 
summer for the fishing and bird shooting on the islands, 
was visiting at the great house, and one day while on 
the island hunting, his gun exploded and the charge 
was blown into his arm and finally it gave him lockjaw 
from which he died. 

Father was there several days and nights at the time 
caring for the unfortunate young man. 

He said he did not see anything superstitious, but 
he had heard doors opening and closing in the dead 
of night when the family were all in bed, and nothing 
but invisible hands could do that. 

The great yard was full of flowers, but the lilacs 
and roses grew, blossomed, and faded unmolested 
there, and there was not a boy in the village mean 
enough to even think of molesting any fruit that grew 
around the place. 

The youngsters, large and small, had a deep respect 
and awe for the house and its surroundings, and 
passed it by with looks askance, expecting to hear a 
ghostly shriek or see a bloody face peering from the 
window, if we even paused on the walk outside. So 



lyS Fortune's Wheel 

we were always in a hurry when going by the old 
haunted house. 

The last family that Hved there in my childhood, 
was a Presbyterian minister and his faniily of grown- 
up daughters. The mother had passed beyond where 
realities exist and shadows play no part. 

I have forgotten the minister's name, but I used to 
look at him when he was preaching and wonder if any 
spirits came to him at dead of night. 

These people ran in and out in the dark as well as 
in the daylight, and did not seem to mind the old 
haunted house at all. 

It took me years and years to understand why they 
were not afraid. 

• It was because they were an educated and cultivated 
family, and education driyes out superstition as well 
as other things. 

Our country has changed more through the influence 
of the public schools, than all other influence com- 
bined. 

Let us keep gn educating the children, that is our 
only salvation if we expect to become the greatest 
nation — which really seems our destiny. 

We have monsters stalking abroad in our land still, 
and they do not belong to the imagination either, but 
are real substance and make themselves visible in many 
forms. 

There is no need for me to moralize. Men are sel- 
dom made better by telling them their sins. But a 
better reformation than the world has ever seen will 



I 



spook Lore and the Haunted House 179 

come when noble, God-Hke actions take the place of 
seeming, and a deeper soul development opens our 
hearts to our brother's needs — then we can truly share 
with him and Christ's kingdom be estabUshed in the 
world. 



I 



CHAPTER XVI 

DURING THE GREAT REBELLION 

It was during my childhood that we were plunged 
into the greatest Civil War the world ever saw. I was 
too young at first to understand its full significance, 
but it was brought home to me, child though I were, 
and before it ended I knew something of its horror. 

There were war meetings in churches, halls and 
even in the open air on street corners, and in any place 
where men could be congregated together and speakers 
set forth the condition of the country in such glowing, 
burning words of fire that a wave of patriotism and 
enthusiasm was kindled that nothing could quench. 
A gun had been fired and it reverberated throughout 
the length and breadth of our land. It echoed and 
reechoed the wrongs of a down-trodden people and 
told of a nation dismembered, disgraced and polluted. 

A company was enlisted in our village and in a 
short time was on its way to the front. I can remem- 
ber how these soldiers looked marching through our 
streets, and mother's youngest brother in front play- 
ing the fife; they were gone and then the sorrow be- 
gan. It was so easy to listen to the speeches and feel 
thrills of patriotism, but when it was all over and the 
fathers and sons gone then the time of tears had come, 
and weeping took the place of enthusiasm. Not that 

i8o 



During the Great Rebellion i8i 

any were disloyal but that loneliness and heart ache 
would creep in, not knowing how the end would be. 

It was not long before we knew how the end would 
be for some, for in a very short time the reports be- 
gan to come in and they told of brave men loyal to 
the call of their country who would never return to the 
homes which were now left desolate. And as some 
fell by the wayside others enlisted and pushed on to 
the front to take their places, and before long there 
was scarcely a home that did not have some loved one 
gone. 

During the first years of the war, dear great-grand- 
mother would gather us around her bedside in the 
twilight and tell of the Revolutionary days when she 
was a child, and of how those brave patriots fought 
for freedom, and how they all suffered together, men, 
women and children. She explained to us the cause of 
the Civil War. Said it was principally to save the 
Union which our forefathers had fought and bled for, 
thus comforting us all and keeping up a brave patriotic 
feeling among us. 

And the patriotic songs, how they filled the air ! they 
were even sung in churches, too. " We are com- 
ing father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong," 
" Away down south in Dixie," *' The star spangled 
banner," *' Brave boys are they, gone at our country's 
call," and a host of others not gone from my memory 
like many things for these were stamped indeHbly and 
time cannot erase them. 

I remember how we looked for the newspapers, and 
how eagerly the long lists of names would be scanned 



1 82 Fortune*s Wheel 

-in search of loved ones who might have fallen in the 
battle lately fought, and how the women gathered in 
knots to discuss war news, and form plans to send 
delicacies to sick and wounded soldiers. 

Before the war had been long in progress my uncle 
the minister went and his two eldest sons followed. 
After a year he came home and recruited a company 
and went as captain, his youngest son having gone 
before he came home. Those were patriotic days, 
when the father and three sons all went and left no 
man at home, only the weeping wife and children. 

No wonder these things were stamped indelibly on 
my memory. They were the most stirring times any 
nation had ever seen : brothers fighting to the death, 
while the women remained at home and scraped lint 
and rolled bandages, and made comfort bags for the 
brave boys gone many of them never to return. 

Talk of heroes and martyrs; they did not all fall on 
the battle field, neither were they all offered on the 
altar of their country. I have witnessed scenes as a 
child, that time can never efface from my memory. 
Scenes of the sorrows of wives and mothers who had 
lost all that made life dear to them, and the suspense 
and agony of remaining behind were — many times — 
infinitely worse than being in the thickest of the fray. 
Think of a woman's agony when she knew her hus- 
band or son was wounded and in a rebel prison. 

Sorrow and pain have their place too, and while 
the nation was bleeding at every pore, the people were 
making giant strides in soul development, and when 
that awful Civil War should end, we would never 



During the Great Rebellion 183 

be just the same again. We were to wear the stamp 
of pain and suffering and out of it all should rise a 
higher and better civilization, but years and years 
must pass away before it would all be accomplished. 

War is a calamity, but many times people develope 
faster through calamity than through good fortune. 

I was living with my aunt during a part of this time, 
and her home was changed and almost desolate, for my 
uncle was a kind, genial man and we missed his pres- 
ence. And aunt seemed even more determined during 
his absence that I should be miserable, and I was 
.lonely and unhappy. Right when things were the 
worst an uncle drove over to carry us to great-grand- 
mother's funeral. I was put under the Buffalo robe, 
and when they let me look out I saw the steeple of the 
Catholic church, and in a minute we were home. I 
did not go back with her for my dear father had en- 
listed and in a few days would be gone. Father was 
a Canadian, and though living in the states had never 
taken out naturalization papers, and, of course, if he 
had not wanted to have gone could have remained at 
home. But he seeing the need of men strong, good and 
true enlisted and went. 

Before the war ended there was scarcely a sound 
man left at home. If perchance there was a sound one 
he was represented at the front by some one hired to 
go in his stead. I recall to mind one, a drygoods mer- 
chant on a small scale. When he was drafted — he 
had not tried to go — hired a substitute and paid the 
fellow three hundred dollars to represent him. The 
man left the money for his family to Hve on during 



184 Fortune's Wheel 

his absence, and when he returned in less than a year 
he had left one limb behind. Years later the merchant 
was peddling milk for a living, while the substitute 
was living comfortably in his old age on a pension 
Uncle Sam had given him as a recompense for the lost 
limb. Everything has its price, and it is just as well 
to pay first as last, for pay we must. 

Prices which were before the war at rock bottom 
had gone up so high that poor people could hardly 
live at all, and there was Canada right in sight, her 
prices away down as usual. Of course the temptation 
was great and the law broken all the time, for every 
family that could beg, hire or even take — without ask- 
ing — a boat went to Canada nights to purchase goods. 
This made a complication of affairs in our country, 
and soon Uncle Sam understood that the loyal people 
at the north must be watched, while he fought the un- 
loyal ones at the south, and a company of soldiers was 
sent to our village to guard the lines and keep people 
from smuggling. But for all this vigilance people 
smuggled right 'before their eyes. It was in the days 
of hoops and they were the most convenient things for 
smuggling that were ever invented. A woman could 
put on her hoop skirt and a petticoat having very large 
pockets over it and let the pockets fall inside the 
hoops and in that way she could smuggle tea, shoes, 
calico and many articles useful to her household, and 
the soldiers seeing her walking along would never 
think — or if they thought — they did not dare question 
her — she was smuggling. 

These soldiers ran out of provisions and were fed 



During the Great Rebellion 185 

by the people several days, and they were at our house, 
some of them, to eat many times. And mother began 
questioning them and found that they were from Mass- 
achusetts, and one was mother's cousin, her father's 
brother's son. You see his name was the same as moth- 
er's name had been, and she was curious. And the man 
did look like one of mother's brothers, and questions 
brought their relationship to light. If the man had 
been possessed with half the curiosity our mother had, 
and had asked one-half the questions, I am afraid 
poor mother would have been in trouble, for she made 
very many visits to Canada to see father's relations 
during that time, and always wore her hoops and re- 
turned after night. 

But then you see we had business in Canada, we 
could go there to visit our friends. 

I have gone over lots of times wearing old shoes 
and returned wearing good new ones. But the soldiers 
never questioned our mother. She was good to them 
and fed them, and the best way to a man's heart is 
through his stomach after all. 

This company of soldiers — for some reason — was 
commanded by a lieutenant instead of a captain. Per- 
haps their captain had fallen in battle, anyway he was 
not there and the lieutenant felt the importance of 
his position. One could see him riding around the 
village, his sword dangling at his side, any time dur- 
ing the afternoon. He did not even mess with the 
other soldiers, and made one of them care for his 
horse and one day when this man had neglected to do 
everything as he, in his fastidious way demanded, he 



- 



1 86 Fortune's Wheel 

called the common soldier up to him — he being 
mounted — and using his riding whip as an instrument 
of torture belabored the poor man over the head and 
shoulders. It made quite a feeHng against the lieu- 
tenant in the village and caused me in after years 
to think — when I was old enough to reason ior my- 
self — no wonder many a subaltern fell on the battle- 
field. Probably there are men alive to-day who could 
tell a tale if they wanted to. 

This bit of army discipline was stamped indelibly on 
my memory too. 

As the war progressed and men grew scarce the 
young boys began to go. My eldest brother, among 
the rest, started for Madrid to enlist, but as Provi- 
dence would have it he returned that same night and 
mother was saved that agony, for she seemed always 
to havea more tender love for this her first born than 
for any other child. 

But when my uncle the minister recruited his com- 
pany she sent Seth to join his company as a drummer 
boy, but Seth fell sick at aunt's house with measles, 
and before he recovered my uncle had gone, and Seth 
returned home, and mother had to make the best of 
the situation. 

We must not conclude that all were loyal and true, 
three of my great cousins went, two went south to 
join the army, one went to Canada and remained there 
until it was all over, and he did not lack for company 
either. There were a good many Americans residing 
in Canada during that sad and dreary time. 

The summer after father went to the war I was sent 



During the Great Rebellion 187 

to aunt's to stay and crying did no good. Mother 
could make use of my sister older than I, and I must 
go there and she stay home. 

That summer on the Fourth of July when patriotism 
ran high if it ever did — among women, children and 
old men — there was something going on to feebly 
celebrate the grand and glorious Fourth, that our fore- 
fathers had established with their blood. I just as 
anxious to see it as a child could be, my aunt made me 
walk two miles and gather strawberries for a short- 
cake for dinner, before I could go to see the celebration. 
I was so tired when I got there that it had lost all its 
charm, and I cannot remember even what they did. 
It was all lost in the shadow of that long walk and 
those berries. 

Mother came there on a little visit during the sum- 
mer and brought our baby brother, a little child who 
could walk but still wore dresses, and I thought him 
the nicest child in all the world, and mother brought 
another thing, a new calico dress for me. 

She made it for me, and one morning put it on and 
told me to go and show it to my great aunt and her 
daughter. I never thinking a trick could be played 
on me went cheerfully feeling proud of my new dress. 
They probably knew that I had been sent there for a 
purpose and detained me as long as possible, and 
finally when I got so far as the gate on my homeward 
way I saw the stage roll past the corner away down 
street and I hurried on. When I got to aunt's I found 
mother gone. She had gone on that stage. I ran 
through the house screaming aloud, but aunt soon put 



1 88 Fortune's Wheel 

a stop to that, and I was there all that summer attend- 
ing school a part of the time and the rest doing errands 
and taking care of her children, for there were two 
now. 

My uncle's eldest daughter was home a part of the 
time that summer, too. Her education was finished and 
she was going west to become a teacher and was at 
home making preparations for her departure, and one 
young man, not in the war for some good reason, 
came several times to see her. This annoyed my aunt. 
I think she was miserable any way when any one was 
contented or happy around her, and she determined 
to get rid of the fellow some way, and finally decided 
that I her slave would help her out of this, too. So 
one night when he was there she awakened me — I 
slept with her — arid told me to cry as hard as I could, 
and in the morning she would give me a lump of sugar, 
and I, not being able to disobey her anyway set up a 
loud crying, saying I had a pain in my side. This is 
what aunt told me to say. The daughter came and 
gave me peppermint and finally the young man built 
up a fire, and she put on hot cloths all to no purpose, 
the pain got worse or at least the crying did, and 
finally I becoming exhausted turned over and said, 
oh aunt ! I can't cry any longer and went to sleep. 
The young man took such a broad hint and was never 
seen at that house again. But somehow my aunt and 
her daughter, by marriage, though never good friends, 
were even worse after. And soon the daughter left 
for the west and never returned to her native state. 

During this summer my young uncle's three years 



During the Great Rebellion 189 

of enlistment expired, and he knowing the need of 
experienced men reinlisted for five years more, or 
during the war, and came home on a short furlough. 
A few months later he was taken sick and came home 
to recuperate, but the disease — chronic dysentery — 
had gained such a hold on his system, weakened 
by long marches and exposure, that there could be 
nothing done to save his life. 

I was at home that winter, and sat in his room day 
after day keeping things tidy for him, and attending 
his wants all a child could. 

Poor young soldier! life's battles were ended for 
him. He died on Washington's birthday, and was 
buried the twenty-fifth, on my birthday. 
I I ought to remember things which happened in 
I my childhood. My life moved in a narrow channel, 
I but my experience- was wide enough. 
I I remember when Abraham Lincoln was assassi- 
I nated as though but a year had gone by since that 
tragic event. In that day the church bells tolled off 
\ the age of the departed, but now all the bells tolled 
! together, flags were hung at half-mast and churches 
I were draped in mourning and a nation already deep in 
I the blood of their brother mourned their savior slain. 
I Mother had gone to Albany to see father. He was 
j sick in a hospital and we were very anxious about 
him, and this awful tragedy coming at that time im- 
pressed it more thoroughly on my young mind. 

The war was rapidly drawing to a close, but the 
time seemed long to us at the north and we thought 
father would never return to us. But one day in the 



190 Fortune's Wheel 

early summer we children were sitting on the grass 
talking over the surrender of Lee's army and the fall 
of Richmond when we saw an old gray haired man 
approaching. He was dressed in faded Army blue, 
and was so feeble that he was supporting himself with 
a staff. 

We did not know him until his face lighted up with 
the same dear smile as of yore. It was our father 
returned to us an old man in such a short time and he 
still so young. He was only forty-six at that time. 
He never recovered his robust health. 

My heart almost sinks when I think of the mutilated 
men who returned to the arts of peace, the empty 
sleeves and trouser legs, the enfeebled in health, which 
were in many cases worse than the loss of limbs. All 
unsettled and restless. They had gotten a taste for 
adventilre, and thought, many of them, that all they 
had to do was to go south and pick up a fortune and 
return north and enjoy their remaining days in luxury: 

Times which were before the war so dull were 
brisk enough at its close, and if these adventurous men 
had invested what they got from the government in 
something at home many of them would be better off 
to-day, but the spirit of adventure had taken possession 
of them and many of them started out over the face of 
the earth wandering. 

If my father could have looked into the future one 
short year I am sure he would have done differently, 
and probably saved his family. But he too was 
possessed with this spirit, and thought the south the 
open door to wealth and opulence. Beside he had 



During the Great Rebellion 191 

the boys to provide for and the sunny but devastated 
south had room for all. 

He was not long in convincing mother that it would 
be best for all, and in the autumn we were to go. 

We were all home that summer and all meant a 
good many souls. At this time there were nine 
children in our family, my eldest brother in his nine- 
teenth year and the youngest three years old. And 
as the daughters of the poor usually marry young, my 
eldest sister — one year younger than our eldest 
brother — was married and had a child a few months 
old 

We were all to go south. She and her young hus- 
band and child along with the rest, making thirteen 
souls in all. A large family for a man of small means 
to start out with on such a journey, and in such a time 
just at the close of that terrible Civil War. 



CHAPTER XVII 

OUR JOURNEY SOUTH 

So in the autumn of 1865 our plans being all com- 
pleted we started south to seek our fortune in that 
sunny land where fortunes were lying in wait for just 
such unsophisticated folks as we were. 

Mother decided to not sell the old place, but rent it, 
and if we were not suited with the new country to 
which we were setting our faces we could return and 
have a home to return to. 

All of the household effects that could be sold were 
parted with, and those not saleable were stored in the 
old linterns. The dishes and bedding were packed 
together with the clothing and all made ready for the 
long journey sOuth. 

Mother had two friends in Leavenworth City, Kan- 
sas, men whom she had known from childhood. They 
had gone there poor boys, and at that time, 1865, were 
getting rich. At first they had worked and saved and 
finally had gone into the retail grocery business, and 
by good management and thrift had gained enough 
ground in business to extend their trade to both retail 
and wholesale, and seeing they were doing so well 
there, to that city father decided to go. 

We said good-bye to relatives, friends and neighbors 

192 



Our Journey South 193 

and early one morning found ourselves on board a 
steamer that would take us to Ogdensburgh where we 
would make final arrangements for the journey south. 

Now we were grand folks indeed, and going a long 
journey, too. We had seen the steamers going up and 
down so many times laden with their happy throngs 
of people journeying, and we had wished and even 
longed to go on a long journey, too. Now our time 
had come and we were really on the way. 

We left the little wharf and crossed over to the 
other side, entered the canal through the locks and 
steamed past our Canadian relatives who were on the 
bank waving their last good-bye. 

How beautiful the river seemed to us now that we 
were on its bosom perhaps for the last time. How 
the water rippled and gurgled over its rocky bed as 
though trying to remind us of joys vanishing with 
this great change we were making. But for all the 
tumbling and tossing water could suggest of joy or 
happiness we were glad to be on this journey for we 
had longed to see other places, and perhaps they would 
prove more beautiful places to us. Perhaps, who could 
tell? We entered another canal higher up to get 
around the Lachine rapids, and sometime during the 
day arrived at Ogdensburgh. 

Across the river was Prescott, and father pointed 
out the old '' Wind Mill," and told us of how as a 
young man he had belonged to the British Army for 
a time, and was at the battle fought at this place, 
and it took the name from the old mill, and is known in 
history as the battle of the Windmill. Nine men had 



194 Fortune's Wheel 

been killed In the battle, and in his young days that 
had seemed fierce fighting, but since the great Civil 
War it was only to be smiled at. 

We saw so many ferry boats and so many new and 
strange things we were delighted with the world, and 
only hoped it would keep on growing larger and 
larger to our vision. We were so anxious to see some 
of it. Father had told us of Albany and Washington 
and Richmond and other cities and places he had seen 
and we wanted to see this great world too. 

He took us around Ogdensburgh all he could and 
we were delighted with all we saw. 

A large steamer was lying at the dock taking on 
her cargo, and when she would be ready we were 
going aboard, and would be in Chicago in a week if 
we had a good voyage. 

I cannot remember when we started but it was dur- 
ing the afternoon when we went through the Thousand 
Islands; I shall never forget the scenery, and when 
we steamed into Lake Ontario just as the sun was set- 
ting in Vermillion and gold, and all its radiant glory 
glinting across the water in rippling shimmering 
waves of beauty; no artist can paint, no pen can por- 
tray, and nothing but the soul can understand, and 
that in dumb, speechless wonder, at the glory of nature 
that can never be put into words ; I thought the world 
all water and the water all a golden light, and my 
soul drank in the beauty of nature, and I was glad that 
God had let me see some of His wondrous works. 

My life had been so narrow and cramped I reveled 
in such glory as the Thousand Islands, and the sun 



Our Journey South 19 j 

sinking into Ontario showed me. Again it was day 
when we came to the Welland Canal and what a mys- 
terious place that seemed — a place where steamboats 
and other craft could walk up and down hill — then we 
began to fully understand the use of canals, could see 
how progressive man had even outwitted old Niagara, 
and the wonders of nature, combined with the great 
achievements of man set us to thinking many things, 
and to ponder on the vastness of things in this world. 
We could look away down and see Ontario so blue and 
peaceful, we climbing higher and higher, but we 
reached the top at last and soon finished the last 
fourteen miles and slipped into Lake Erie and then 
our troubles began. 

It was late in the season anyway, and the weather 
which had been fine changed and the wind blew a 
hurricane — at least it seemed so to us — and we were 
a sick lot. 

We were traveling second class but were not alone. 
There were two families on board in our class, one 
an Irish family. I think there were fifteen children in 
all and they were very ignorant and furnished much 
amusement. They all expected to go to the bottom 
and wept, and prayed, and ate, and were sick at the 
same time. ** Jamie me darlint we'll all be drownt," 
was heard continually from the mother — while the 
father comforted her by telling her " Yis, we surely 
will." 

But the other family were very different. They 
were quiet, well dressed Americans and ha 1 plenty of 
money. They were young people and had two small 



196 Fortune^s Wheel 

children. But the young wife's sister was going west 
with them, a pretty, quiet, young woman who had 
some money too. These people had expressed their 
money, the major part of it, but it seemed they had 
a goodly sum with them. 

This was the reason it became known. There was 
a young man with them who had made love to the 
sister and they were engaged to be married, and he was 
going west, too, but all the time he wanted to carry 
Katie's money and she did not want him to, and the 
brother-in-law would not let her trust the man with 
the money and the young man sulked and Katie cried, 
and knowing we would think strangely of their conduct 
the woman told mother what was wrong. 

Mother being of a very practical turn advised them 
never to let the young man have a cent — saying that 
if he got that money he would leave the boat at the 
first port we came to and that would be the end of 
the money and man too. 

They left the boat at Milwaukee, the young man was 
still with them 'sulking and Katie at her tears. 

If Katie married him she must be weeping still, if 
not dissolved to tears long since. 

My eldest sister had a very fine voice and had sung 
in the choir for a long time. I could sing very well, 
too. We did not have trained voices, oh, no, that was 
not the way common people sang thirty or forty years 
ago. We, if we could sing at all, just sang in the 
natural voice God had given us and furnished enter- 
tainment for the untrained ears of our hearers. 

My sister two years older could sing a very little, 



Our Journey South 197 

but she stood with us always and sang as well as she 
could. 

We were not a day out before it became evident 
that people were on board who could sing, and we, if 
we would have complied, could have been singing all 
the time. The Captain or Mate would come for us 
and we would go on the forward deck and sing, and 
several times there were crowds gathered on the docks 
when we were in port to hear us sing those glorious 
songs of old — 

" Lift up your eyes, desponding freeman, 
Fling to the winds your needless fears, 
He who unfurled your glorious banner, 
Says it shall wave a thousand years." 

and others just as stirring. Somehow there was such 
a soul inspiring, stirring ring to the old patriotic songs. 
They seemed to lift people toward freedom and liberty. 

Freedom and liberty are wide terms and mean so 
much. I often wonder how many are free in this 
*' Land of the free and home of the brave." 

When we reached Detroit mother's brother came 
on board, a man we children had never seen. He was 
very much disturbed over our move, and told mother 
it was a great undertaking, for the south was so dif- 
ferent from the north with its clear, cool, sweet air 
free from malaria. He was a practical man and had 
seen more of the world than mother had and knew 
some of its traps to catch unsuspecting victims. 

We bade him good-bye and passed on. The storms 
were terrible and we were sixteen days in reaching 
Chicago. At one time we cast anchor in Saginaw 



198 Fortune's Wheel 

Bay and lay four days, and the wind howled, and the 
white caps rolled, and the Irishman lost his hat and 
wanted the captain to put out a boat and recover it. 
But that hat was never recovered, and the poor man 
had to tie a scarf around his head, and when they left 
the boat he was still wearing the red scarf and all 
things considered it was very becoming to him. 

While we were lying here at anchor we could see 
the land not far away. It was a trackless wilderness 
of primeval forest, and a lonely log house with blue 
smoke curling heavenward from its chimney com- 
pleted a picture of desolation. 

I remembered this place years after when I was a 
prisoner in just such an out of the way place where 
solitude and forest made up almost the sum of my 
existence. 

But finally we reached Chicago. What a strange 
Babel that seemed to us. The river was full of craft, 
large and small, and along its sides — for it had no 
banks — were those tall, grain elevators, the bridges 
swinging open every minute to let some boat pass, and 
a multitude coming and going ; all seemed wonderful 
to our young and inexperienced eyes. 

Truly the world was growing larger to our vision, 
and if we kept on we would see some of it, too. 

The " Great Union Depot " was a wonderful place. 
I had never up to this time been on the cars but once, 
and that only a distance of eight miles ; but now we 
were going hundreds of miles, and I knew I should 
never be tired of the cars. 

We pulled out from Chicago and ran across the state 



Our Journey South 199 

of Illinois, and had no trouble of any kind. But the 
world had changed from sky and water to sky and 
grass, and we admired the rolling prairie even more 
than we had the rolling lakes. 

When we arrived in Quincy we began to have 
trouble. The baggage-master wanted father to go on 
and he would send our baggage after, but mother de- 
clared she would do no such thing, and here we re- 
mained until our baggage went, too. We saw a family 
at Leavenworth that went on and never saw their bag- 
gage again. 

We crossed the Mississippi and somehow after living 
on the beautiful St. Lawrence we did not think much 
of " the Father of Waters." Here in Hannibal we 
had to wait for a train and were there over night. We 
slept in the depot, all but mother and my eldest sister; 
they with some others went to a farm house for the 
night. There was no hotel nor town at Hannibal at 
that time, and delayed travelers put in the night as 
best they could. 

Sometime the next day a train came along and we 
boarded it. It was an old engine and the fire plate was 
worn out, and we would run about two miles and then 
were jerked nearly out of our seats coming to a dead 
standstill. This kept on hour after hour, stopping 
long enough to get up steam to run two miles then 
jerked again. 

You must remember that things were pretty well 
dilapidated toward the south at the close of the Great 
Rebellion, and the further south the worse the dilapida- 
tion. 



aoo Fortune's Wheel 

I think we were a week in getting from Chicago to 
Leavenworth city. We were so tired of cars we never 
wanted to see another train, and when we stopped at 
St. Joseph, Mo., we had to stop another night and wait 
for a train which took us so far as Atchison, then we 
boarded a boat, and the queerest one we had ev'er seen 
or ever heard tell of. It was neither a lake steamer 
nor a Noah's ark, though we were inclined to think it 
was made after that pattern, all but the wheel. We 
did give that the credit of being modern. It was a 
stem-wheeler and the wheel was as tall as the boat, 
and was the funniest thing ever fastened on a boat 
as a means of locomotion. But it took us in safety to 
Leavenworth City, our destination. But what a 
strange sight was this for our northern eyes. The city 
swarmed with negroes. I saw children five or six 
years old nude, clinging to their mother's dress trying 
to hide. 

We found a hotel but board for our family would 
be thirty dollars a day, and our money was getting 
low and we could not stay there. Father began to 
look around and found a man who wanted just such 
sturdy looking men and boys as we had in our family 
to work for him. 

He owned a saw mill across the Missouri river at 
City Point, and here we decided to go. Father went 
over and looked up the prospects, and the man fur- 
nished lumber for a house — a very small one — and in 
a day or two it would be ready for us. 

It was only the second day before we could go over 
and occupy it. Mr. Beckwith, father's employer, was 



Our Journey South 201 

very kind and seemed to take a great interest in us, 
and sent a mule team for us. We had so many boxes, 
valises, bundles, and lunch baskets, it would need a 
large wagon for them and us too. But when we were 
finally loaded on, we drove to the ferry and drove right 
on the flat steamer and sat there on the load, never once 
trying to get down. We had been three weeks on the 
journey and were exhausted from loss of sleep and in- 
convenience. 

V/e must have created a great sensation, but when 
one is traveling there are so many things out of the 
ordinary, people get used to queer things and only 
smile. We had smiled and now took our turn at being 
laughed at. 

We finally landed, but in the strangest place we had 
ever seen. In fact we did not know there were such 
places in the world up to that time. All the houses 
were like Granny Pidgeon's, none better, and my eldest 
sister declared that we had reached the jumping-off 
place. Some women with pipes in their mouths were 
standing outside a hut, their arms akimbo, and a broad 
grin on their faces as though they had never seen a 
family before. There were negroes everywhere, and 
they rolled up the whites of their eyes and showed rows 
of white teeth, and we knew they were amused at the 
very muchness of our family too. 

Our house differed from the others in only one par- 
ticular, it was perfectly new. So new that the roof 
was only half on and there was not a window or door 
or floor. There were openings where a door and win- 
dow would be some day, but when the day came the 



202 Fortune's Wheel 

door was hung and the window hung too. Fatherll 
opened places in the sides for windows, and the boards 
thus removed were fastened back with leather hinges, 
and during the day were left open and at night were 
closed. 

It is wonderful how little we mortals really need. 
Adam and Eve must have been a happy couple with 
no house to care for, and no worry about fashions, 
nothing to do but to enjoy nature pure and simple as 
God made it. 

Where were we to sleep? Father answered the 
question by making four little berths against the wall, 
like those seen on the steamer. It was such a con- 
venient way and did not take up much room. There 
were four or five boards laid across under the peak 
from plate to plate, and there a bed was arranged for 
the two large boys. 

We managed to get on somehow, and we children 
were so tired we did not care where we stopped if we 
only stayed and got rested. 

We found pawpaws and late grapes in the woods, 
and father found two snakes twisted around a limb. 

We had truly found a new world and the old one 
seemed far away, and we knew by our little experience 
that the world was large and we scarcely a drop in the 
great bucket of humanity. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SOMETHING OF OUR LIFE THERE 

City Point was in its extreme infancy when we 
arrived there the year the Great Rebellion closed. 
There were only two public buildings, a small store 
and lager beer saloon ; the store was the only two- 
story building in the place ; the saloon was built of logs 
and partly under ground to keep the beer cool — the 
drinkers seemed to be cool and self possessed without 
any device to quiet them. 

There was no definitely laid out town, no streets nor 
plan at all. People came and built a cabin any place 
where they happened to think best; and such queer 
looking abodes as they were. One was built against 
a large cottonwood tree which had been felled and 
found hollow. The trunk served for one side of the 
house ; logs were built up in a strange manner around 
three sides, and the roof rested on the tree trunk. 
Every building, large and small, had a mud chimney 
exactly like pictures shown of them in some of our 
leading magazines. 

There was an island lying in the river between City 
Point and Leavenworth City, and a small stream which 
cut this island off from the main land was called the 
slough, pronounced sloo. It was quicksand bottom 

203 



ao4 Fortune's Wheel 

and nearly dry when we arrived there, but the late 
rains filled it some and there was a little ice on this 
small stream that winter, a thing that had not been in 
years. 

The people all '' took up " water from this slough — 
of course it was Missouri river water — put it in barrels 
and tubs, then sprinkled meal on top and when it was 
settled used it, there being none better. It was vile 
to our northern taste, but we had to use it along with 
the rest. It was full of mud and filth, and when first 
dipped from the slough if we would put our hand 
under and stick up a finger, we could not see our palm 
when the water was at the first finger joint. Father 
dug down and got water, but it was even worse, and 
colored a tin dish in a day or two, so we kept on using 
the Missouri river water. 

City Point is situated in the bottom lands of the 
Missouri, and at that time v/as a very unhealthy place. 
The inhabitants were refugees from Arkansas, people 
who had fled from their homes before the advance of 
the army, and getting to this point settled or squatted 
for a time and they were the true founders of the place, 
and the place at that time was worthy of its first set- 
tlers, for Adam and Eve in their most sinless state were 
never one-half so unsophisticated as the primitive in- 
habitants of City Point. 

There was no cleared land in the city nor around it 
either for that matter. 

Mr. Beckwith put in the saw mill and was getting 
out the logs which were converted into lumber in his 
mill. There were men chopping wood all around us, 



Something of Our Life There aoj 

and burning coal pits and getting out anything which 
the timber could be converted into, axe helves, rail- 
road ties, etc. 

Work was plentiful and wages good. Seth went to 
work in the mill wheeling saw dust at two dollars a 
day, and he only fifteen years old. Every one in our 
family who could work was employed. Father could 
get fifty cents apiece for axe helves, and hickory and 
pecan — both the very best kinds of timber for the pur- 
pose — could be had for the taking, and he could earn 
three dollars a day at that. Sometimes he helped 
burn coal pits, for he understood that kind of work 
j too. 

! The wood was chopped mto cord wood lengths, and 
I stood on end in a round mound, an opening left in the 
j top for the fire, and vents arranged at intervals around 
I the bottom, then all covered with earth and packed 
I down hard, the fire built in the top and covered with 

earth too. 
[I These coal pits must be watched very faithfully, so 
that the coal as it chars is kept from blazing, that 
would ruin everything. It must be kept smouldering 
by keeping out the air, so men who burn coal pits must 
work day and night too. 

Father had a flat-roofed hut by the coal pits, to nap 
in, and it was our childish delight to troop off there 
and spend the evening at father's side, and watch the 
smoke oozing from the dark mound, and listen while 
father told tales of the days when he had burned coal 
before. At such times he talked of the stars and 
pointed out the North star and the Great Dipper and 



2o6 Fortune*s Wheel 

Milky Way, and told us of the nights on the battle 
field, where he had lain. Dear father, he was always 
glad to have us around him, and was so, kind and good 
we delighted to be with him. 

There were so many strange things in this new place 
that we had found, we were finding out something 
every day. We made journeys into the woods and 
gathered bushels of nuts, hickory, pecan, and black 
walnut. Father made a mud chimney for us just like 
our strange neighbors had, and v/e sat around the chim- 
ney and cracked nuts to our hearts' content. We had 
never had such a luxury before — all the nuts we 
wanted — and we were happy in a childlike fashion, 
present wants being satisfied, future cares could take 
heed for themselves. 

When we first went to City Point we had a tiny 
sheet iron stove, so small that enough could not be 
cooked on it at one time for our whole family, so the 
meals were cooked in sections. Seth would rise first, or 
rather come down from the peak where he slept, set the 
pipe off the stove and carry the stove out to the door 
and shake the ashes out, and set it up again and build 
the fire. There was no hearth, only nine round holes 
across the front for draft. Soon the little stove would 
be so hot that it grew as red as a cherry. Then my 
eldest brother came down and made the first break- 
fast. I do not know why he did, but he was young 
and strong and enjoyed the novelty I think. He made 
corn cakes and baked them in the oven and fried 
bacon and made coffee. My sister and I would look 
down at him from our top berth and watch him put 



Something of Our Life There 207 

the materials together for the corn cake: water, salt, 
soda and sorghum, then enough white meal to make a 
thin batter, that was his recipe. 

When father built the mud chimney, we discarded 
the " tin stove " as we called it, and mother did all 
the cooking and made such sweet bread and baked it 
in the bake kettle in the hot ashes and coals. 

We were not unhappy. There were so many things 
; to amuse us, and we like all members of the " Yankee 
' Tribe," were determined to see and know everything 
that was going on around us. 

We soon learned that there were more ways than 
, one in the world, and we eagerly tried every new thing. 
! Father and the boys made excursions into the interior 
and found farms and brought home huge pumpkins, 
and doing as others did, set crotched stakes in the 
I ground and slung a pole across, put on a big kettle 
I and cooked the pumpkin all day out of doors. We 
' children watching and feeding the fire. We would 
I put in some sorghum to sweeten it a little, and some 
\ allspice to season it a little too, and using a long paddle 
to keep it from burning stirred it until it was done, and 
I seeing we had such a scant variety of food, this pump- 
kin sauce was not so bad after all. 
I Father was a man of resources and never had to 
\ stick to one job " for aye." When axe helves were a 
little slow in going off and coal burning was waiting 
1 for fresh wood to begin anew, he would fish in the 
Missouri river, and fishing was a passion with him. 
I think he liked to fish a little better than anything else. 
But the method of taking fish from the Missouri was 



ao8 Fortune's Wheel 

so different from that of the St. Lawrence, it was like 
beginning and learning all over new how to fish. 

We children went with father away back from the 
river to an old cotton field, where the cotton had not 
matured perfectly and the year's growth was still un- 
gathered being worthless for market, and we gathered 
quantities for fish bait. Father would take meal and 
pour hot water over it thus forming an uncooked mush, 
then he would work the cotton in to make it hold 
together, then scented it with anise or asafetida, then 
roll it into balls. He fastened short lines hooked and 
baited with these balls to a long rope called a night- 
line; this line he anchored in the river and caught 
more fish than we could use, so one day he took some 
to the city and found such a ready market for them, 
that from that day he fished as much as he worked, 
and it was more profitable too. 

The two principal kinds of fish were buffalo and cat- 
fish. The buffalo resemble our northern whitefish, 
and the catfish were like any other catfish only very 
large, much larger than any we had ever seen before. 
There was an abundance of. soft shell turtles, very 
saleable, and sometimes mother cooked them, but I did 
not enjoy them. I had such a horror of reptiles I 
could not even eat turtle. Of course the fishing was 
done in the spring and summer. It was late autumn 
when we arrived there, and winter was to come, and 
everything was at its worst ; but we were to stay, and 
summer would bring us something new. 

There was an abundance of small game, ducks, 
geese, — I have seen them by the thousand on the sand 



Something of Our Life There 209 

shoals of the old Missouri — prairie chickens, turkeys, 
and squirrels, great large fox squirrels — we had some 
game nearly all the time. 

Mother was always a good cook and when the 
neighbors stuck to the straight com pone, bacon and 
black coffee, she changed our bill of fare all she could. 
We had one great advantage in living as we did, there 
was no house to keep and nothing to do but cook, eat, 
and sight see, and that was not a small part by any 
means — the sight-seeing was something wonderful to 
our northern eyes. I never saw but one horse while 
we were in Missouri, and that was owned by a govern- 
ment detective who soon found us — for while at the 
north we were not important at all — we here found 
ourselves of vast importance to several persons who 
like ourselves were for the first time in such a country 
and among such .a strange people. This detective came 
to see us often, and talk over the queer doings and still 
queerer sayings of the " poor whites " around us, and 
many a time he took me up on the big horse before 
him, and holding me, cantered off around the place. 
Mules and oxen and occasionally a cow hitched in, 
were the beasts of burden then. 

There was a young doctor from Vermont trying 
his fortune in the sunny South, and he had struck 
City Point about the same time we did and he soon 
found us. Vermont and New York are near neigh- 
bors when one is far from home. This young doctor 
would come to our cabin and sit on a stool father had 
made from a shake by boring holes and putting in legs, 
and tell us his experiences with the natives, and we 



aio Fortune's Wheel 

would tell ours. All the females smoked a pipe, and 
many of them chewed too, and they could hit a crack 
in the floor or in a log as straight as the best spitter 
among the men, and at as long range tod. Dr. Millan 
said he was called to see one female, and she told him 
she had gone to the creek to '* tote " a bucket of' water 
and " cotched a heap of cold." He asked to see her 
tongue, and there w^s a great chew of tobacco lying on 
one side of her mouth. The doctor told her to put out 
the quid and she would get well. Oh how merrily the 
young doctor would get off their queer speeches, many 
of which could not be recorded here, we laughing with 
him many times until the tears would roll down our 
cheeks. 

Mother's friends in Leavenworth came to see us, 
and we went there and found them quite rich people, 
and they- proved good friends to us when we needed 
friends, which we did all in good time. 

Of course there were negroes everywhere, and they 
were really more enterprising than the *' white trash," 
as they called the natives. Their cabins better fur- 
nished and their food better prepared and of better ma- 
terial too. The first pair of kid shoes I ever owned 
were given me by a negro woman at City Point. She 
had had several pair of half worn ones given her by 
some white friends in the city, and one pair fitted me 
and I begged mother to buy them for me, but she 
would not indulge in such finery even though it was 
second hand, and the black woman seeing how dis- 
appointed I was gave me the shoes. I felt very proud 
of them, and have kept a warm place in my heart for 



Something of Our Life There 2 1 1 

this kind act to a child who was nothing to her. She 
understood disappointment the keenest the human 
heart can know, for she had been bought and sold 
many a time, and hope had died out of her life only 
to be renewed again and again until finally through the 
greatest struggle any nation had ever known, she and 
her kind had been freed. She was a grateful woman 
and could not say enough in praise of the Union sol- 
diers and " Massa Lincoln." 

There was a farmer named Mr. Henry — so we called 
him — the natives called him " old man Henry," living 
about two miles from City Point. We got acquainted 
with them and Mrs. Henry came to see mother many 
times. She always came on the back of a tiny mule. 
She was a very large woman weighing perhaps two 
hundred and fifty pounds, and when she was on the 
mule's back one could see only its head and tail. We 
always thought her a queer object when on the mule's 
back, for he was not much larger than a young calf. 
But he made up in strength what he lacked in size, 
and carried his burden in safety. 

We used to go to their farm often, for they were 
genial people and had no children to share the good 
things they seemed to always have on hand when we 
went there. 

The house was a double log one — a room at each end 
and an open space in the center where the family had 
meals in the warm weather. 

Mr. Henry always wanted me to play checkers with 
him, and he would get the board and we would sit by 
the old mud chimney and play, and I could beat him 



212 Fortune's Wheel 

every time. I thought at that time that the reason I 
beat all the time was because I was a Yankee and 
smarter than the dull farmer of the South. I think 
now perhaps he let me beat out of courtesy, for the 
southern people are very courteous when they take a 
liking to one, and the Henrys like " You'uns," as they 
called us. They never said you and we. They said 
" You'ns " and " We uns." 

There were cottonwood trees — and the second 
growth of this timber is a pretty sight, the trees when 
young are light colored and look some like poplars, the 
bark is smooth and the trees are so tall and straight 
they looked very quaint growing on the bank of the 
slough on the road to Mr. Henry's house, and when I 
think of the people I always see the grove of second 
growth cottonwood trees, the slough and island across 
and the path we followed up the bank to their house. 
I always had a feeling that I was in an enchanted land 
when passing through the grove of tall, weird young 
cottonwoods. 

The woods were literally full of rabbits. Seth caught 
some and I tamed two, and they would creep into my 
sleeve and lie there contented and happy. 

Then there were the opossums. The first one I ever 
saw father brought home " dead as a smelt." He told 
us of its peculiar habits, and we all retired for the 
night and left him lying dead on the floor. The fire 
was burning cheerfully in the old mud chimney, thir- 
teen pairs of eager eyes were keeping watch, and when 
everything was quiet and the opossum thought us all 
gone he lifted up his head and looked around, and see- 



Something of Our Life There 213 

ing no one, made toward the door, but father called out 
and he dropped dead again. This was tried several 
times just to show us the way the opossum has of 
cheating man, especially black man. I have a sus- 
picion that I have read or heard somewhere that 
negroes like opossum and chickens both, and can 
scarcely tell which is the better. When they are eat- 
ing opossum they say that is '' best," but when the 
chicken is done to a turn they are nearly out of their 
wits to tell which is '' best." I have tried both and 
pronounce them both very toothsome. Perhaps it was 
the keen hunger of childhood that made me enjoy the 
opossum, and again perhaps it was mother's way of 
frying it down in the skillet until it was a golden 
brown. Anyway the opossum makes very good eat- 
ing when properly served. 

The woods fairly swarmed with hogs, one came 
upon them any time and in any place. 

There were so many and no one seemed to know 
who owned them, and one day when we were tramping 
in the woods Seth decided to catch a young pig and 
take it home and have mother cook it whole. Of course 
he had no trouble in catching the pig, but when it be- 
gan to squeal its mother rushed at Seth, and he shinned 
up a tree and we dashed off for home. 

The old hog sat there and watched him a long time, 
thinking probably that he would come down and she 
could teach him a little lesson in manners. 

We had not known before that hogs had such love 
for their offspring, and from that on passed them 
quietly by, paying them due respect. 



214 Fortune's Wheel 

The woods were full of northern song birds and 
robins hopped about our door just as they had in the 
old home. 

I decided to make a collection of eggs in the summer, 
but when summer came the birds had flown, that is, 
the kind we had been familiar with all our lives. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE PEOPLE 

The people ! the primitive inhabitants of City Point ? 
I could never describe them. It would take the pen 
of a Dickens or a Hugo to do them half justice. How 
such a class of people were ever evolved on American 
soil has remained a mystery to me. 

The day of our arrival at City Point mother took us 
into a cabin where a family of " poor whites " lived, 
to wait till father got our little stove set up. It was 
getting late in the season and the air was some cool 
and our house built of green lumber, and a fire must be 
built somewhere before we could go inside, so mother 
took us into this cabin. 

It was a very small abode and had no windows, and 
the woman closed the door as soon as we got inside, 
and we filled the cabin pretty full. We drew up to the 
cheerful fire which was blazing away in the old mud 
chimney, it being the only light thing or place we could 
see. 

We did not sit down. There were not seats for all, 
so we stood up and looked at the woman and her two 
children — girls — who resembled their mother in form 
and complexion — all three having neither — that is as 
well as I can describe nothing to say that it does not 
exist. 

2IS 



2i6 Fortune's Wheel 

The woman was tall and big and bloated — at least 
she looked that way — and stood with one fist on her 
hip and the other one was attending to a pipe which she 
never removed from her mouth only when it was nec- 
essary for her to eject the surplus secretion from the 
salivary glands. Her name was Hall. Her husband 
was called " Old Man Hall," and she " the Old Woman 
Hall/' this was the way the natives called every mar- 
ried man and woman. 

Mother began asking this woman questions, and got 
some queer answers but very little information. 
Mother asked first how long she had lived at City 
Point, and the woman replied '' a right smart," and 
mother said " a right smart," why how long is ** a 
right smart"? and the woman took her pipe from 
her mouth and said, " don't you uns know ? " and 
mother said '* No, I don't," and the woman looked 
strangely at mother as though questioning her word, 
and then fired a volley of spittle at the fire and said, 
" Why a right smart is a right smart, I recon," then 
replaced the pip'e and began drawing away as though 
the question was settled. Anything that was so simple 
as that people should know without asking questions. 

Then mother asked where they came from, and the 
woman replied promptly, '' Arkansaw," and mother 
asked how they got here and she said, " We uns just 
run for our lives and kept on running until we uns 
landed here," and mother said, why did you run? and 
the woman said, " the soldier," and mother said 
*' What soldier," and the woman said, ** oh, just 
the soldier. I don't know what soldier, but we 



The People 217 

uns had to run for our lives," and that was all 
the poor creature knew of why they had fled from 
their home and why they had settled at City Point. 
Mother asked next what they lived on in this 
queer place, and she brightened up and said, " Corn 
pone, dodgers, and coffee and bacon and coon 
and rabbits when we uns can get them." ^lother 
wanted to know, of course, what a pone was, and the 
woman could not tell, ^^'e found out afterwards that 
it was a loaf; and the next question, " what are dod- 
gers ? " and for answer the woman showed some little 
flat meal cakes made of white meal, salt and water. 
They were formed into cakes by the hand, and the 
shape was like a cake would be if it fitted the hands 
when put palms together. She broke up several and 
gave us some to eat, and really they were sweeter 
than any com bread we had ever eaten. But we were 
destined to get dodgers enough before that winter 
ended. We were thirsty and the woman brought water 
in what she called a bucket, and gave us a drink from 
a dipper made by scraping out a long stemmed gourd. 
She said they " toted " the water from the " sloo," and 
mother said, '' What does ' tote ' mean, some pecuHar 
'^ay of carrying water? " and the woman spit into the 
fire again — as though it was a relief to her feelings — 
and said. '' You uns don't know much, I recon," and 
mother began to think that if that sort of thing kept 
i on she was likely to remain in ignorance, for asking 

questions did not bring information. 
1 Father came to tell us our stove was set up, and we 
I took our departure. The woman looked relieved to 



21 8 Fortune's Wheel 

see us go, and on mother's face was that set look as 
much as to say: I will find out all about the woman 
and her family too. There must be some way of find- 
ing out, and I shall know. 

We learned all their peculiar phraseology in time, 
and found that " a right smart " might mean anything 
according to what it was applied to, three months, ten 
years, four rods, six miles. In fact it was like some 
of the slang phrases of to-day, it could mean anything, 
according to the mood of the speaker. 

" Old man Gan " and his ** old woman," and " old 
man Maning," lived in another little' cabin on the 
opposite side from us, and they were queer specimens 
of the genus homo. All they knew of their past 
history was that they had lived in " Arkansaw " before 
the war, and they had run for their lives when the 
soldiers came, and now they were settled at City 
Point. 

Their cabin was very small, and when the weather 
permitted they lived entirely out of doors. They set 
crotched poles 'in the ground, slung a pole across and 
hung on the kettle, if the food was to be boiled, or used 
the skillet and sauce pan if it were to be fried, then sat 
around the fire on their haunches and watched things 
cook and beguiled the time by smoking their pipes. 

"Old man Gan" was a hunter and trapper. He 
hunted small game, and his " old woman " could fry 
it down such a golden brown that we children enjoyed 
hanging around their fire, for we picked up many a 
toothsome " tid bit " in that way. 

The old man was something of a Chinese in his 



The People 219 

hunting, " Everything was fish that came to his net," 
and he trapped skunks, dressed and ate them just as he 
did opossums and coons. 

Once when I was hanging around their fire the old 
woman gave me a hot biscuit, and large piece of meat. 
I ate them with the hungry appetite of childhood, and 
pronounced them very delicious, especially the pure 
white meat — like chicken breast — perfectly cooked, a 
rich, golden brown outside, and " old v/oman " Gan 
laughed heartily and said, " Skunk, child ! skunk," and 
sure enough it was. The old man had trapped six 
large ones, and dragged them to his hut and hung 
them up by their heads — we wondering what a man 
could do with such awful things. It was meat for his 
family sure enough. Well that night there was an 
awful commotion in the vicinity of " old man Gan's," 
and the -loudest smell that ever floated over a com- 
munity began radiating from that point, and soon a 
tumult began, and our door was quietly pushed open 
and Seth stepped inside and mounted to the peak 
where he slept nights, and then we knew that he had 
been up to some of his tricks. He had gone and with 
a long pole had stirred up the skunks, and set a wave 
to vibrating that aroused the inhabitants of the hut 
and the whole community. " Old man Gan " swore 
by all the gods he knew that if he knew the " peskey 
galoot " who had prowled around his hut meddling 
with his store of provision he would shoot him sure. 
Well he did not find out, and the next day I had some 
of the meat, never once thinking that I was eating 
skunk until she told me. 



aao Fortune's Wheel 

" Old man Gan " and his '^ old woman " quarreled 
frequently. She drank whiskey when she could get it, 
and it kept them in a turmoil nearly all the time. She 
would step up to him — a very tall, thin man — she very 
short — and strike her fist up toward his face and call 
him frightful names. Finally they parted, and she 
went away, then he sold the cabin to four young men 
who came to live there during the winter. But they 
were children, undeveloped children, and made up 
their foolish quarrel and were living together again in 
a very short time but in the cabin where the cotton- 
wood tree trunk formed one side to the hut. We knew 
these people, and got used to their mode of living, for 
they were at City Point as long as we remained, as you 
will see further on. 

Old man Newton had several children. His eldest 
son was married and had a family of five. I think as 
a rule the Southern people do not have large families, 
at least those at City Point at that time did not. *' Old 
man Newton " had the largest family there, and he had 
six children, nearly all of them grown up, and the 
women were big, bloated females, all smoked and one 
went around with two revolvers strapped to her waist. 
Another big bloated female in this family was lame, 
and walked with a crutch. She had been married, but 
did not know what had become of her " man." Miles, 
a youth of eighteen or nineteen, had been married too, 
but had got lost away from his *' woman " when they 
fled from Arkansaw, and did not *' look " to see her 
again, and if there was any other woman in want of a 
** man," why he was to be had for the asking. The 



The People 221 

Newtons had the least of any family at City Point, and 
all could work, and we did not see why they were so 
poor. They did not have an earthen dish in their hut. 
I have seen them eating many times, their only food 
fish and dodgers, both laid on the table — a rough board 
affair — and not a dish nor knife or fork, all eating with 
their fingers. 

They had a pet pig and it occupied as honored a posi- 
tion in the household as any member, and slept under a 
bunk which the two young women used as a sleeping 
apartment. It followed them around like a dog, and 
frequently when it was tired they took it up and car- 
ried it in their arms. 

This family was by far the worst type of humanity 
I ever saw. They had nothing and knew less. The 
" old man " was very large, and had big bushy whis- 
kers and a voice like the roar of distant thunder. Fre- 
quently they quarreled and fought, and it would be 
announced to the neighbors by the " old man " running 
out of doors and swinging a huge stick around his 
head and roaring like an enraged beast. He cried that 
he would shoot, kill, stab or murder some one ; but he 
never did kill any one, though we children felt sure 
that someone would die of fright at the awful roar of 
his voice. 

The four young men who bought out " Old Man 
Gan " came there with a big mule team, and brought 
their whole worldly goods along with them. Soon they 
discovered the Newtons there too, or at least the " Old 
Man Newton " discovered them, and it was announced 
to the community by the most terrible roaring and 



222 Fortune's Wheel 

threatening ever heard ; one of these same young men 
was the man who had at some time in the past married 
and deserted the lame daughter of this enraged sire. 
The young man pacified him by going to his cabin and 
claiming the lame girl as his wife, and took her to his 
own cabin to cook his corn cakes and bacon, and peace 
was restored. That made five individuals living in a 
hut twelve feet square. 

Levi Johnson was the name of another young man 
in this gang. He soon discovered a young girl named 
Lizzie Hall and made love to her, and soon persuaded 
her to marry him. My married sister ' went to the 
city with this couple and was a witness to their mar- 
riage, and it was performed in a church too. 

Not long after mother saw Lizzie outside her cabin 
sitting on a log crying as though her heart was broken, 
and mother asked her what the matter was and she 
said : " Levi went to the city to-day and didn't bring 
me a pretty," and mother said what is a pretty? And 
she sobbed out, " Why it's a pretty." That was the 
beginning of woe to that poor young wife. 

These people had never heard of Christmas and we 
children could not understand how any child could 
live in the world and not know Christmas. We ex- 
plained it as best we could, and told how we hung 
up our stockings and " Santa Claus " came and put in 
presents. We further explained that our parents were 
the ones who got the presents and " Santa Claus " did 
the putting in. 

Then young John Hall — Lizzie and John belonged 
to another family by that name from the one we first 



The People 223 

saw when coming to City Point, said if we children, 
his cousins and ourselves, would help him load his 
big ox wagon with chips he would go over to the city 
and sell them and get us some " pretties," then we 
knew what a " pretty " meant, " a present large or 
small," just a little token that showed that one had 
been remembered and was loved. Then we knew why 
Lizzie cried. She thought Levi was forgetting her, 
and che was only a child, a poor, ignorant, undeveloped 
child, and would never be anything else. We Vv'orked 
faithfully and filled the wagon, and John went to the 
city, sold the chips, and brought m.e for my '' pretty " 
a big candy heart. It cost seventy-five cents. I had it 
several years. Though I suspicioned that I got the 
prettiest " pretty " in the " bunch " there was no need 
to tell young John that he had given me the best. He 
wanted me to have it and so gave it to me. Perhaps 
a bit of his heart was in the gift, but I was too young 
at that time to know or care much about hearts other 
than candy ones. 

These people, the refugees from Arkansaw, the 
original founder of City Point, ^Missouri, were all alike, 
and what I have said of one could stand for all. IMost 
of them could play the Jews harp and would stand 
around on one foot or lean against a post and play 
the Arkansaw Traveler for hours together. They 
could neither read nor write, and did not have the 
least idea of distance, and said places were " So many 
looks and a right smart " distant. They were poor, 
awfully poor, so poor they did not know how poverty 
stricken they were. They had no possession and never 



224 Fortune's Wheel 

had had anything in the way of possession, and knew 
not their value. They had poverty of spirit, too, the 
greatest poverty any human being can possess, and 
they had that in its fullest sense. 

The men all carried revolvers and knives, and none 
of them Avere afraid to shoot or stab. In those days 
just after the Civil War when men were steeped in 
blood, a man or two less were not worth counting, and 
blood-letting has been considered, by some, as good 
for the system. 

If you doubt my statement in regard to the shooting 
and blood-letting, just read the history of the south 
during that sad and awful time. Study it now and 
see how much it has improved as regards those 
practices. 

When winter set in it lasted about six weeks. There 
were several flurries of snow, but the morning sun 
dispelled it before noon. The worst feature of the 
winter was a piercing wind which blew from the 
prairies of Kansas just across the river. This wind 
seemed so thin and cutting it almost pierced to the 
bone. But we children sat around the mud chimney 
most of the time during that short winter and talked 
over the strange things we had seen on the journey, 
the still stranger place where we were and wondered 
if we would ever see the dear old home again. 

But that short winter drew to a close and spring 
began to put in his appearance, and something queer 
began to happen to old Missouri too. We had not 
given that stream much thought as yet. We had 
known the grand St. Lawrence and cared very little 



The People 225 

for tills stream of mud that rolled past. The river 
is a strange one. The bottom is quicksand and keeps 
moving all the time. Sometimes we would see a long 
sand bar out in mid stream as though an island were 
forming: the next day it would all be gone. But now 
the water began to rise higher and higher, and soon 
the banks of the slough were filled and a rushing tor- 
rent swept along where only a tiny stream had been, 
and old Missouri rolled past, a mighty stream tumbling 
and pitching its mud billows about in a way to strike 
terror to stout hearts. 

The four young men hitched up the mule team, 
gathered their effects together and loaded the big 
wagon, and started off just as they had come leaving 
the woman and young wife. Poor Lizzie cried and in 
her pleading said if Levi would take her she would 
never cry for a pretty again. But Levi was obdurate 
and went right off. She followed him to the big flat- 
bottomed boat, my married sister went with her, feel- 
ing a woman's sympathy for the poor deserted wife. 
Levi had driven the mules and wagon on the boat, and 
he told the captain he did not want Lizzie, and some 
deckhands put her off carrying her by main force. 
My sister assisted the poor young thing to her mother's 
cabin, and Helen Newton hobbled home on her crutch. 
She had been treated thus before and took it stoically. 
She never saw her " man " again, and probably Lizzie 
never saw her husband either. 

The old Missouri kept on rising, and the whole 
bottom land was flooded. It would have been a good 
thing for us if we had taken warning and fled when 



20.6 Fortune's Wheel 

the young men did. But we did not understand what 
grim monster lurked in the filthy deposit from the mad 
mud torrent. 

Father had built our house on a rise of ground and 
the water never reached the door, but it was all round 
us. During the wet time we children walked on stilts 
and visited the " poor whites." They were amazed to 
see us walking on sticks. They were just as amused 
at our queer doings as we were at theirs — if a poor 
white can be amused. 

After a time, I can't remember how long, the water 
went down and left little pools in every hollow. The 
slashing of timber during the winter had left much 
cotton-wood bark on the ground, and the gumbo clay 
kept the water from soaking into the ground, and 
soon the warm sun began to shine and the pools were 
covered with a green blanket of scum. This gave us 
no uneasy feeling, for spring had burst upon us with 
bud, leaf and bloom. The sun shone brightly, the song 
birds took their departure for the north, all that had 
come south for the winter, and we fairly reveled in the 
lap of nature. 

Father and the boys rolled the logs off from two 
acres and fenced it in with the logs, and mother and 
we children planted seeds of all kinds, corn, potatoes, 
lettuce, peas, beans, and father set sweet potato vines, 
and we were to understand quite forcibly the signifi- 
cance of the rhyme " grasshopper sat on a sweet 
potato vine " before that summer should go by. 

Father purchased a cow and we had plenty of milk 



The People 227 

for nothing, for she could get her living anywhere on 
the bottom land. 

My brother-in-law had earned a goodly sum of 
money, and he and my sister set up housekeeping for 
themselves in a cabin on the bank of the slough. 

Father set poles in the ground in the front and rear 
of our house, and built up rude porches on them. One 
we kept covered with green brush and used it to sit 
under, the other mother used as a " cook place." 

It seems to me in looking back over that time that 
there were many things to make a child's life happy. 
There was a constant stream of boats going up and 
down the river all the time, but they were the most 
pecuHar craft we had ever seen. They were tall and 
fiat-bottomed. Sometimes the wheel would be a great 
large one extending the entire height of the stern of 
the boat. Again they would be side wheelers, no pro- 
pellers such as we had seen on the journey on the 
Great Lakes. The river bottom changed so often that 
navigators could not keep track of the channel, and 
the boats had to be so they could run anywhere in 
shallow water. 

The great city was right in sight and we went there 
many times. Father had two boats, and it was not half 
the trouble to cross the Missouri it had been to cross 
the St. Lawrence. 

The woods fairly blazed with bloom. The wild 
roses were very beautiful and we were never tired of 
gathering them, and we, after the fashion of children, 
were happy. 



CHAPTER XX 

FURTHER EXPERIENCES 

The schools and churches of City Point at that time 
were exactly like everything else around the place, of 
the most primitive style. So primitive that the school- 
house and church were conspicuous by their absence. 
But school was kept in a tiny cabin in the town, and 
" meetings " held in another one away back from the 
bottom land two miles. I started to attend school and 
went one week then stopped, for the tuition was six 
shillings a week and mother thought that too much to 
pay for "education. 

The teacher true to ever}1:hing in her surroundings 
had to be queer too. She was a little young woman 
and had no nose, and it made her look so funny that I 
could not keep my eyes on my book, but kept watch- 
ing her and trying to find out how she became noseless. 
Patt Carr's nose had been eaten out by a cancer, but 
she did not look a bit like Patt Carr. There had never 
been anything the matter with her nose, for she had 
been born queer, and her queerness was, that she had 
no nose. I did not dare ask her how she became nose- 
less, and speculate as hard as I could. I could but de- 
cide that poor ^Miss Emma had been bom as she was, 
just as other mortals are bom as they are. I used to 
think at that time that perhaps it had all happened 

228 



I 



Further ExDenencses 229 



■ -^ c'*-- ^-^ - 



i 'z»een rom in fu::: 1 rurer place, and 



Wlai 5::i:_i fsudes we g"et in yonth. I "^ent 
several ti:::r^ zj the " njee rrt g-s." but they fr^ - -t— 

Z30re queer thsn the school ard n-osdess : T t 

mmistier "was a larg^e inan and seenjcd 10 oLb^ve jGcas 
^r\iiicii he tried to exT'lain to th : ' ' ^ "" : ~ f iii : t 

m a lood ponqwns siyle as th: _^ ^ :_:; 

-lad more real weigiit than s?nnd r: 

If he had soond arg-^: ^ t : —ha: 

.: was, for the ci -. t«oc»k my whole at- 

:rr.r:?n. Xearlx ^„ :: i_t : : were ':ic md wore 



L>rv. 




^^T than thr 

^ _ -i. __:--_ __ _ -okeinpt hi_:. _..-» 

rr be in a sor: ire?? dress wearing; nefiher 

" : r coats, and set : ench and faced the 

- thcagh t' : - : all humped up and 

tc^ether in a i t : They catne with their 

" ' ' - - with them by ther 

:. - — ---^ : ---^. _ -_:. /jLSt at the ag'e when 
"TT^T**''?rfi'?n5 cfi TTTiv.'ji 2nd rh^T^rteT are made, 

, azKi when 



a^o Fortune's Wheel 

I view the pictures on the walls of my childhood's 
memory, my life at City Point stands out in bold relief, 
almost eclipsing every other picture. 

Not being in school and having no books to read, 
we had to do something to amuse ourselves, so we 
just run wild in the woods and wandered all over the 
bottom land and away back from the bottom land 
miles and miles up and down. Of course we came 
upon snakes very frequently, spotted adders, black 
snakes, rattlers — we had fourteen rattles taken from 
one of that kind — and swifts were there by the thou- 
sand — snakes on legs we called them. They were 
spryer than chain lightning. No one could strike one 
with a stick. The only way I ever knew of one's being 
killed was once one ran under a piece of bark, and 
Seth smashed the bark and killed the swift too. 

We Wore our stout shoes when on these excursions, 
for there was no knowing what one might run on to, 
for there were living things of all kinds belonging to 
the creeping and crawling tribes. 

In the evening fireflies and glow worms flitted past 
or lighted up thus announcing their whereabouts, and 
" katy-dids " kept telling us that " katy-did, katy-did." 
And the mosquitoes and gallinippers (a huge mosquito) 
sung their peculiar song and thus gave warning of 
approaching enemies. We kept a smudge and fought 
mosquitoes too. A gallinipper can bite terribly, and 
one is as large as several mosquitoes. We had been 
told that the mosquitoes in the south were so large that 
many of them would weigh a pound, and when we 
saw the gallinipper we thought it would not take very 



Further Experiences 1231 

many either. In the daytime we could hear the turtk 
dove's plaintive note, and while roaming in the woods 
frequently saw the beautiful mountain oriole flitting 
from tree to tree. Nature was lavish in her display 
and sometimes gorgeous in her coloring. I have 
never in my small wanderings met with such a display 
of fauna and flora as in the bottom lands of the old 
Missouri. The wild roses were the most magnificent 
ones I ever saw, and there were immense quantities of 
them. 

We gathered gooseberries and sold them in the city 
for a dollar a large pail, and there were bushels and 
bushels of them. We wondered why the natives did 
not gather and sell them, but they never did anything 
like that. To us it did not seem like selling berries. 
Over in the city the people wanted everything of this 
kind they could get, and paid such a good price it did 
seem a real pleasure to offer them for sale. 

The mulberries came later, and they were the nicest 
berries to gather we had ever found. A mulberry tree 
looks something like a second growth maple, and the 
fruit when ripe resembles long blackberries. We 
would take some sheets and pails and go into the 
woods and find a tree, then spread the sheets on the 
ground, and Seth, who was good at climbing, would 
go up and shake the berries off. We then lifted the 
sheets and carefully shook the berries into the pail. 
It was fun to pick berries that way, and the pail filled 
so fast ; every pail full meant one dollar to us. Then 
the early Fox grapes came and there was a ready 
market for them, and we begun to think we had found 



1232 Fortune's Wheel 

the " Garden of Eden." The water in the slough wentf | 
down so we could walk over to the island, and there 
the grapes grew in great abundance. We were de- 
lighted to gather them they were so sweet, and we 
of the north had never had fruit in such abundance, 
and we fairly reveled in it. 

We found wild plums as large as any tame ones I 
have ever seen, and they were so sweet, ripening as they 
did under that southern sun. 

Our garden was the finest one we had ever raised, 
and we had vegetables of all kinds, more than we could 
use. Everything found a ready sale in the market 
though, and it was no trouble for father to row us over. 
We children were delighted to go to market. It was 
"such a wonderful place to us. A place where one 
could buy anything needed in a family from a pinch 
of sauerkraut to a whole ox. 

We had a flock of chickens, and they laid an abun- 
dance of eggs. One hen hatched four broods of 
chickens, and it seemed that she laid eggs all the time 
too. I had two pet pullets, one yellow and the other 
pure white, and they were so fond of me that they 
would come at my call and sit on my shoulders and 
nestle against my neck. 

Early in the spring my eldest brother got a puppy 
and raised and trained him to bring birds from the 
water. He was very fond of the dog, and when the 
little fellow would get tired from the long rambles my 
brother would carry him, and many a time I have seen 
them coming home the dog in his arms. When we left 
Leavenworth this dear dog was sitting on the bank of 



Further Experiences 2^^ 

the river looking off down stream, and our hearts were 
sore to leave him thus. But we were leaving so much 
that another tear did nof matter, and we let the tear 
fall and did not try to attract his attention for fear 
that he too would mourn for us, for dogs do mourn. 

Already a dark cloud had risen on our horizon. 
In the spring my sister Puss was very sick with fever 
a long time. Then another little sister was taken with 
brain fever and lay ill a long time, and later we began 
tc have some ague. 

The cotton-wood bark was rotting in the pools left 
from the overflow in the spring, and these pools be- 
came very stagnant and gave off an offensive odor, and 
the evening air was filled with miasma. Then my 
sister's husband was taken with the fever and mother 
began to worry, but was told that northern people 
always had to go through just so much sickness before 
they were acclimated. 

My sister's husband was ill a long time, but finally 
began to get better, and we thought perhaps it would 
all come out right at last. We had made so much 
money that we began to think that we would all get 
rich if we could only get well and keep so. 

Already my eldest brother talked of going in the 
autumn down among the Cherokee and Delaware 
Indians, where there were rich lands to be had and 
money to be made. 

We had gotten the spirit of adventure stirred and 
kept on thinking of change and bettering our condi- 
tion. 

There was another member in our family that de- 



234 Fortune's Wheel 

serves special notice. Young Edward Walace. My 
eldest brother found him one day in the woods in the 
early spring when he was duck shooting and brought 
him home to mother. He was about twenty-seven 
years old, tall and well formed, had brown hair and 
those innocent childlike blue eyes, which always go 
straight to the heart of a mother. He wore the Army 
blue and had a frightful scar on both sides of his 
shoulder where the Rebel bullet had gone straight 
through. He, too, had fought and bled for his coun- 
try's cause, and when he was sent home discharged 
from a hospital, he entered into an affair of the heart 
that proved his undoing. Love and war have played 
some queer pranks with the destinies of men. 
■ Young Edward became enamored of a woman, who, 
by the way, must have been a vain flirt, heartless and 
cruel. They were married on short acquaintance, and 
she, when she found that he was not rich in this 
world's goods, refused to live with him and went home 
to her father. He had a charming manner, and I 
suppose he dressed well and thus attracted her at- 
tention. He was taking a college course before the 
war and left that unfinished to serve his country, and 
when the war was ended went back to finish his course 
and met the woman who proved his undoing. When 
she returned to her father's roof he left his native state 
penniless and on foot, not caring what became of him, 
and wandered away down into Missouri where my 
brother found him. 

It was spring and fruits and edibles, which he could 
have found in abundance later in the season, were all 



Further Experiences 235 

hidden in the bosom of old mother nature, and the 
poor boy, for so he seemed, a beardless youth, had not 
eaten anything for days. He was with us, a member 
of our family, four months, and each day endeared him 
to us. He entered into the life of our family as though 
he belonged to it. Called our parents father and 
mother, and he and my eldest brother were inseparable. 
They slept in the same bed, and worked together at 
the same work. His one and only fault that we could 
find was his extreme vanity. I never saw anything 
like it before or since in a man. He carried a glass, 
and never took off or put on his hat without having 
recourse to the glass. But for all his vanity he was a 
true noble gentleman, and we loved him Hke a brother. 

After his death my father wrote his parents the 
particulars and sent to them his little belongings, 
excepting the '■ housewife " he carried through the 
war, that is in our family still. 

The young wife became a mother, and through the 
affidavits of my parents secured a pension for herself 
and child. So in a small way she was recompensed, 
but I have always felt that she was not deserving of 
that. But I will do her this justice. I never heard her 
side of the story. 

On the Fourth of July, Edward and my eldest 
brother took Puss and me to Leavenworth to see the 
celebration, and we went into a restaurant for the first 
time and ate ice cream. 

Oh, my how hot the weather got and we could not 
step on the ground barefooted. It seemed to us that 
the world would all bum up. We had never- seen 



2^6 Fortune*s Wheel 

such hot days, but the nights were cool and we could 
sleep comfortably. 

My sister's husband was getting better, and in a few 
days would be able to walk to our house. 

July passed away and August set in, and something 
strange began to happen. Clouds began to darken the 
sky and no clouds could be seen, and someone sug- 
gested grasshoppers, but we only laughed at grass- 
hoppers coming down in clouds. Our garden was 
grand, and the corn was so high that it actually hid 
the house on the side where the corn grew. We had 
melons larger than we children could lift, and they 
were sweeter than any melons we had ever tasted 
before. 

Seasons are much earlier in the south than the 
north, and at this time things were well grown. Well, 
the grasshoppers, for that was what the clouds were, 
began to come down gently like living flakes, and they 
were very large and hungry too and began eating 
everything before them. 

Of course we worried about the garden, but there 
was no use in v/orrying, the grasshoppers kept coming 
in clouds. The whole world seemed literally full of 
them, and the corn was stripped and soon there was 
scarcely a green thing left. The devastation was not 
complete, for the vegetables were so well grown they 
could only eat what green leaves there were. The 
corn stood like a small forest, all shorn of its leaves, 
and the tall stalks standing out in bold relief pre- 
sented a picture of what could be accompHshed by 
hungry insects. 



Further Experiences 237 

We were discouraged and mother and my eldest 
brother decided that we had found a bad place. All 
had seemed so fair, in fact too fair to last, and now 
with fever and ague and grasshoppers the south was 
very different from the north. 

My sister's husband was slowly improving, and one 
day walked as far as to our house ; but he could not 
walk alone and came leaning on her arm. I can look 
back and see them coming up the path, she so young, 
not nineteen years old, he so emaciated with fever and 
so feeble he could not walk without her help, and 
slowly they walked along under that burning sun. 

In the spring when we began cooking out of doors 
entirely, and did not use the little house for anything 
but to sleep in, father purchased a bedstead, and that 
was there in the room taking up most of the inside 
space. Then father made a little trundlebed for the 
small children to sleep in, and during the daytime it 
was shoved away under mother's bed. I often wonder, 
when I look back, how we ever lived at all. So many 
of us and not used to such small quarters and had al- 
ways had an abundance of pure fresh air. 

Well mother's bed was made ready for the feeble 
man and he lay down to rest. This was Tuesday 
morning and at night he was still so weary he could not 
walk hom.e, and they both remained for the night. 
Soon they discovered that his fever was rising and 
knew that he had overdone his small strength, and had 
a relapse. 

Wednesday morning my sister was taken with the 
hardest chill she had ever had, in fact she had been 



238 Fortune's Wheel 

quite well during our stay there only for an occa- 
sional chill, so the little trundlebed was left out and 
on it she lay all that day, and was so sick ^nd delirious 
she did not know anybody for hours — the young hus- 
band worse of course. 

At night her ague being gone and our house so 
small and crowded, mother told her to take Seth and 
me and go home for the night, and come again in the 
morning — she was not able to sit by her husband after 
such a day of suffering anyhow. 

Then there was a family council held and the situa- 
tion talked over, and they decided that as soon as the 
sick man was well enough to go they would get away 
from that awful place. They knew by this time that 
the bottom lands of the old Missouri was no place for 
northern people. 

There was something so strange about those south- 
ern chills. While they lasted one was sick enough to 
die, but when they were over and the fever gone, one 
took quinine and thought perhaps they would not re- 
turn. But return they did and they were hard on 
northern people. I have seen the natives start to 
Leavenworth with a load of wood and get to City 
Point, unhitch their mules and tie them up somewhere, 
then lie down under their loaded wagon in the sun and 
have the chill, fever and sweat, then get up, hitch up 
the mules and go on as though nothing had happened. 

But we began to understand why these people did 
not have any ambition. It took them all winter to get 
over the chills of summer. 



CHAPTER XXI 

OUR TRIAL 

I WISH I could pass over this part of my narrative, 
but in justice to myself, I cannot. People say that I 
am queer. Well, I should think I would be. My life 
has had so many queer, strange things in it, it made 
me queer. 

Dr. Holmes says, that a man's education should 
begin a hundred years before he is born. I feel that 
mine began several centuries before my advent into 
this life. My father's people though kind and good 
were strange, queer, superstitious people, and I true 
to nature and being born of that stock am queer too. 
My mother's people though severe in many ways and 
Puritanical in all ways, were the most queer, deter- 
mined off-shoot from a queer, unique stock that ever 
existed, and I being born of this dual queerness in- 
herited it in a two-fold sense, and again, the whole ex- 
vironment of my life has been queer and strange, and 
I could never have evolved anything from it all but 
something queer and strange, something entirely out 
of the natural, and so I am a queer person, a unique 
individual. But if I fulfil my mission in life, preserve 
my own true individuality and develop my soul, then 
I shall not have lived in vain. Soul development means 
so much, for that is the true purpose of life. But it 

339 



240 Fortune's Wheel 

is uncomfortable to be pointed out as a queer person. 
Why not say, I do not understand that individual, I 
do not know the circumstances of birth -and life that 
combined to evolve that unique expression of the All 
Father who has never made one thing in vain.. But 
why philosophize on hfe. Emerson says to be great 
is to be misunderstood. Sometimes I feel greater than 
any book that was ever written ; greater than any 
poem that was ever sung, and feel that nothing in life 
or death can harm me ; for I am one with the Infinite, 
and all the strange, queer surroundings of, my life were 
the very things needed to develop the highest my soul 
is capable of in earth Hfe ; but when I think of the 
awful tragedy that befell our simple family in that 
far-off southland, I wonder that any of us survived 
with min,d enough left to pursue the common vocations 
of life. I wonder that I ever had ambition to go on 
and live and struggle to gain worldly goods and 
worldly fame. But there is so much of the Divine in 
the human after all, that we do not give up the strug- 
gle, only when the soul wings its flight to the great 
supreme first cause, and I do not know that we rest 
then, sometimes I. think it will be a struggle through 
the cycles of eternity. 

When our little sister was ill with brain fever, and we 
thought she could not recover, mother had cried out 
over and over again. Oh, I cannot bury one of my 
children so far from home, I cannot give her up to 
die in this far-off land. How little poor mother knew, 
how much she would one day leave there. 

On the day my sister and her husband came to our 



Our Trial 241 

house on the visit which proved the last, Helen New- 
ton, the lame girl, sickened and died in eight hours, 
that being the very first case of such a sickness we had 
ever known. We had heard of cholera, but never ex- 
pected to see it, and not hearing the natives mention 
such a thing we did not know it existed, and were not 
looking for it there. Mother and " old woman Gah " 
were called in to this family and laid out the dead girl. 
The pet pig was under the bed where she died, and 
mother with her keen sense of decency and cleanliness 
put the pig out of doors. 

As soon as Mrs. Gan got home to her cabin she 
took off her clothes and tossed them on top of her 
cabin to air, and mother asked her why she did it, and 
she said she had lived in the south always, and had 
seen two visitations of cholera in her time, and was 
sure that was the cause of Helen Newton's death. 

All day Wednesday my sister was so sick with the 
ague and at night, she and her child, Seth and I went 
to her house, for our house was so crowded. She 
made a pallet on the floor for Seth. I was to sleep 
with her and the child. Then she filled her tatting 
shuttle with thread and sat by the door and started 
a bit of that lace. The shuttle is in my family still, 
just as she left it that night. The tiny bit of lace all 
discolored with time, but dear to us and we would not 
part with it for any amount of costly lace, then she 
came to bed and in the morning, at two o'clock, she 
was taken violently ill. The first I noticed it she would 
rise up to vomit, and that pulled the quilts from me, 
and I was cold. Soon she awoke Seth and he ran for 



242 Fortune^s Wheel 

mother, and when she came she got me up and in 
that early morning, not quite dawn, I took the Httle 
child and went home and sent father. Seth was sent 
for our physician, who lived inland two miles. But 
they could not wait for that physician, and Edward 
and my eldest brother rowed over to the city and found 
and brought a physician from there, and he pronounced 
the disease cholera. 

He had his method for treating disease, as all 
physicians do, and said her life depended entirely on 
heat. She must be got warm and not have any cold 
water to drink. With cholera the thirst is intolerable, 
and one can drink cold water all the time when not 
retching, and she begged for water all the time ; but 
he gave her hot drink and put hot things about her; 
hot water in bottles and hot cloths, all to no purpose. 
God had summoned her, and at eight o'clock, after six 
hours of agony, she passed on, and she so young, not 
quite nineteen years old. This was Thursday, and 
Friday she was buried in a little cemetery called Green- 
wood, two miles away from the bottom land. 

Father went to the city and purchased a casket for 
her; but there was no funeral cortege. Mother was 
prostrated, and lay on the little trundlebed, the sick 
young husband rapidly growing worse and the child 
cried piteously for its mother. 

That same day young man Newton died and left his 
family of five. We heard a loud screaming and wail- 
ing, and knew what was the trouble, and soon found 
that he too was gone. 

My eldest brother tried to comfort mother, but she 



Our Trial 243 

refused to be comforted, and Saturday morning she 
could not sit up, and he took down his gun and shot a 
chicken and told someone to make broth for her. That 
was his last act, something to comfort her. He had 
spent his young life in trying to help her, earning all 
he could and turning it over to her to use in the family, 
and seemed happy in doing for her; in helping to 
lighten her burdens which, with her large family, were 
heavy indeed. 

He was taken ill so suddenly that he did not have 
time to hang the gun up on the pegs over the door 
where he kept it, and when mother saw him, her first 
bom son in the clutch of that grim monster, cholera, 
she was possessed of strength and energy bom of 
despair. She rose from the little trundlebed and made 
it ready for her stricken child. I cannot describe that 
awful day, though I was there all the time. The same 
physician came from the city. He used his same reme- 
dies, hot water and no cold. 

The struggle was terrible, a strong young man not 
quite twenty, full of life and hope of long and good 
years to come, baffling with such a monster, and the 
monster prevailed, and just as the sun sank to rest be- 
hind the western hill tops, his young spirit took its 
flight into the great unknown, and mother fell on her 
knees in the open door and lifted up her hands to 
heaven and cried aloud in her agony. Her heart was 
broken over the loss of her first bom son, and her 
reason nearly dethroned. 

I shall never forget the awful scene, the dead boy 
on the trundlebed, the dying man on mother's bed. 



244 Fortune's Wheel 

the grasshoppers completely covering everything out 
of doors and mother's agony. 

I remember I seemed to think only of her and won- 
dered how she would live without him. She had de- 
pended on him more than on father, for he was young 
and such a o^ood worker. 

Now everything was changed. Our sun was set at 
high-noon, and the air was laden with death, and we 
all helpless victims not knowing which way to turn. 

Would any of us be spared ? We of the north were 
so much more liable to contagion. 

The city authorities put a stop to people passing 
on the ferry, so no person from the plague stricken 
district could leave that way. But we could not have 
gone to the city if we had wanted to, and now must 
await our .fate. 

That night Puss and I were sent to sleep at the cabin 
of a " poor white " family. They lived right by our 
garden fence. 

All that night father worked and made a box for the 
body of the loved one gone to the other side. There was 
no other way. He could not get to the city and carry out 
a casket unnoticed, and was obliged to do this sor- 
rowful duty, though his heart break under the task. 
And mother wrapped the dear form in a white sheet, 
and together they laid him in this casket made by 
hands that had tended him since a helpless infant 
God had entrusted him to their care. 

I think of them, father and mother, how they must 
have suffered through that awful night alone, but for 
Edward. He stood by them like a dutiful son. 



Our Trial 245 

When Puss and I came home in the morning the 
body lay on a bench by the door ready for its last 
resting place. I do not know much of the burial. 
I only know that a big ox wagon drawn by oxen 
came, and father, Seth and Edward were the only ones 
who followed to the cemetery, for as I entered the 
room I too was taken with the dread disease and again 
the little trundlebed was made ready, for another 
victim lay struggling in the clutch of the monster ; the 
dying man on mother's bed now delirious and not con- 
scious of our agony. 

The others were not allowed water to drink, and 
the only want of the victim stricken with cholera is 
water, water. They beg for it all the time. Father 
decided to not send for any more doctors — who really 
kill more people than they cure — but use their own 
judgment, and if their children were to all die they 
at least could have all the water they wanted to drink. 

Edward went to the bluffs of Kansas, just across 
the river, and brought fresh water from a spring there, 
and father gave me all I wanted, quarts and quarts 
of it. The last I remember the cramps were beginning 
to cease, and father sat by me giving me water from a 
bowl as fast as he could dip it up with a large spoon. 
I was unconscious for hours, and when I opened my 
eyes it was night and two strange men were in the 
room, and my sister Puss was there too, and the dying 
man on mother's bed still raving in his delirium. 

Father had gone to mother where another child had 
been stricken, and that one too died. When mother saw 
that we were liable to all die there in a huddle, she took 



246 Fortune's Wheel 

some of the younger children and Edward to help her 
and went to my sister's now empty house, and there 
father went as soon as he saw that I \yas sleeping, 
and the strange men were watching the dying man 
even more than they were me, the child who had been 
saved from death in such a fearful form. And father 
thought my recovery due partly to the quantity of 
water I drank. 

I shall hasten over some of these things for they 
were so terrible I can scarcely chronicle them. 

Mother was still at my sister's house where another 
child had been taken with cholera, and was in an almost 
dying condition when Edward came in, his face and 
manner expressive of the deepest anguish, and mother 
cried out " What is it Edward," and he said " Cholera, 
I too have it," and mother tried to encourage him 
by telling him how he had seen the awful horrors of 
the war and not to give way under this, for fear some- 
times hastens disease or brings it to our door. But 
he too was in the clutch of the plague and bravery was 
no barrier to keejp it away. 

His struggle was terrible, doubly terrible, for he had 
a heart trouble which now boldly came to the front 
and added another horror to the awful scene. All day 
mother alone tended him and her own child, rubbing 
his cramps, giving him water and fanning him too, for 
he could not breathe along with the rest of his suffer- 
ings. Once after she thought it all over and she had 
gone to her own child, he raised up and cried, " For 
the love of God give me air," then she returned to 
him and fanned him until he was rigid in death. 



Our Trial 247 

Father was at our house attending my sister's dying 
husband, and thought Edward well and helping 
mother. And he had had a touch of the plague himself 
and could scarcely sit up. That night two negroes 
came to mother and put Edward's body on a board 
which rested on two chairs just outside the door, then 
they went directly away fearing the plague, and 
mother alone watched that body all night to see that 
the hogs which ran at large around the bottom land 
did not come to tear it, and at two o'clock in the 
morning her own child died. 

That poor mother ever had any mind at all after 
that tragic event is a mystery to me. My father told 
me years afterwards that she had never been the same 
that she was before, and no wonder. 

Do you wonder where Seth was ? He had run away. 
After I was taken, and he thought we all would die, he 
fled. He was young and panic-stricken. Two natives 
went in search of him and found him nine miles from 
City Point, and still going farther on. They brought 
him back and he stood by after that. I think he had 
ague some while we were in the south, but otherwise 
he was not sick at all and did not have even a touch of 
the cholera, and the two sisters who were sick with 
fever escaped too. All the rest had it, mother and all, 
and at the end of eighteen days there were seven graves 
side by side in Greenwood cemetery. Edward and my 
eldest brother lying side by side, and even in death 
they were not parted. My sister's husband died from 
the relapse of the fever, and her child went too. They 
are all there together an unbroken family. 



248 Fortune's Wheel 

And so they sleep peacefully waiting the judgment 
day when God shall raise them up and clothe them 
with immortal forms, which disease cannot ravage nor 
time destroy. 

But how fared it with the natives? Many of them 
sickened and died too. Mrs. Gan died and later the 
" Old man " was found dead in his hut, and in his 
agony he had crept to the old mud chimney, where he 
had a fire to ward off disease, and his limbs were 
half burnt off when he was found. They all suffered, 
" Old man " Newton's two eldest " girls " went along 
with the married son. One man who had but two 
children kept them in a room and would not let them 
out to breathe the plague-stricken air; both sickened 
and died. Men who had no steady place of residence 
were found dead in all sorts of places. 

I suppose in the history of City Point, the Asiatic 
cholera visitation of 1866 is chronicled. 

The plagme extended to the city of Leavenworth too, 
but things were different there, the land was higher, 
the water purer and the mortality not so great, but 
many deaths were reported daily for a long time. 

Cholera is a strange disease. It is life or death in 
a few hours. And if one recovers properly they get 
about in a few days again. Another thing must be 
added ; father made the boxes all except the casket for 
my eldest sister, and he and mother wrapped the forms 
of their loved ones in sheets and placed them in the 
boxes, and father drove the nails into the covers that 
shut out from their eyes the images of their children 
now dead and gone. Of course the natives were 



Our Trial 249 

afflicted just as we were and could not help, and the 
negroes would not. Of course mother's friends from 
the city came and brought and sent everything in their 
power. But this had to be done discreetly, for travel 
on the ferry was stopped. I remember a box of 
crackers they brought — we had no bread — and mother 
had sprinkled chloride of lime everywhere, and the 
smell of it got mixed up with those crackers and I 
could not eat them, and could not eat crackers for 
years after. They all smelt and tasted chloride of lime. 
After my sister's husband died, about twelve days 
after her own death, the doctor who had attended our 
family all summer came to father and told him that 
if he did not get his family away from the plague- 
stricken district they would all die, and father under- 
standing it fully sought and found a way for our 
escape. No one knows how much strength and 
endurance are in the human form until it be brought 
to the test and tried. Father had suffered in 
the twelve days following, my sister's death, enough 
pain mental and physical to kill a much stronger man, 
but still he rose to the needs of his suffering family, 
and escaping the eyes of the men set to guard the 
flight of plague-stricken people rowed to the city and 
secured a small one-room cottage, and there he took 
us in his own boat when no one knew that we were 
escaping, and there six days later my sister's child 
died. This brought on another complication, for they 
could not think of burying the child away from its 
mother. Seth was at City Point and had the boat 
there so he could row backward and forward, and thus 



250 Fortune's Wheel 

care for the household goods and assist mother and 
father too. And there being no way of getting word 
to him they decided to try the ferry. Persons could 
go to City Point but could not leave on the ferry, and 
mother decided on a course of action, that if success- 
fully carried out would lay the child beside its mother. 
She wrapped the dead child in a shawl as though it 
were a living one, and taking it in her arms walked 
boldly to the ferry and stepped aboard, and took a seat 
as though there was nothing unusual in her mind and 
heart. When they got the dead child to the house 
father made a little box, and he and Seth strapped it 
to two poles and started to carry it to Greenwood 
two miles away, but were relieved of their burden by 
a kind-hearted native who was driving an ox team and 
wagon that way. He took them to the cemetery and 
stood by until their sorrowful burden was laid to rest. 
When they arrived at the cemetery they found that 
some one had buried a tiny child in their row and 
that completed the seven, and not wishing to separate 
the child from the mother, they opened her grave and 
laid the child on 'her bosom. This was just eighteen 
days from the first death in our family, and it com- 
pleted the tragedy, for from that time on there were no 
more deaths. But the pain, the deep, dull, despair that 
comes with the loss of those nearest and dearest the 
human heart would not be quieted, and many years 
would pass av/ay while the pain would eat at the vital 
life of those left. 

The little cottage which we occupied while at Leav- 
enworth City was in the extreme suburbs on the 



Our Trial 251 

south side. There was a spring, not far from our 
door, bubbling out of the bluffs, and we eagerly sought 
its pure, healing waters. Old Missouri glided by carry- 
ing its loads of mud and filth as usual, but we were 
not drinking its disease-laden water, and looked upon 
it with dread. Though it furnished us with food we 
could not love it, and shuddered at sight of it. 

Father, though sick, still put out his line and caught 
fish, and sold them in the city to get money for our 
small needs. 

We had decided to return to the old home as soon 
as we could get money and health enough for the long 
journey, and our stay at Leavenworth of two months, 
while we were making our preparations, was filled with 
many things. 

Mother lay on the cot most of the time, dry-eyed 
and listless. She had not up to this time shed a tear 
since her first-born son had died, but quietly went 
through her trial a^ter that with the mechanical motion 
of a machine. Father would say to Puss and me, " If 
mother could only cry it would relieve her." But the 
fountain of her tears was dry and she could not weep. 

The extreme heat of summer had passed away, and 
it was delightful to wander over the bluffs and gather 
nuts. The nut-bearing trees were everywhere. One 
large black walnut tree stood by one of our doors, 
while a hickory one laden with its abundant harvest 
shaded the other, and though we were within the city 
limits prairie chickens roosted in those trees many a 
night. 

The doctor said I must live out of doors if I ever 



152 Fortune's Wheel 

got well, and Seth, Puss and I wandered all over 
the surrounding country, and when too tired to walk 
farther would sit under a tree to rest, or draw near to 
some house and rest on the steps. Once I. found 
myself on the doorstep of a tidy cottage, very neat and 
tidy, and the door being open I could see inside,' and 
there I found something I shall never forget. In a 
large wooden rocking chair, filled with pillows of 
snowy whiteness, lay twin negro babies, and when 
their mother saw that I was interested in her children 
she invited me in and showed them to me. They were 
the funniest looking little things I ever saw, and I 
went often to look at the tiny bits of humanity who 
though black were Americans and free born. 

There was a school of some kind near this cottage. 
The grounds were enclosed by a high fence, and I 
loved to loiter there and watch the pupils come and 
go, and my heart longed to be a student too. The 
thirst for knowledge has gnawed at my heart strings 
always, and if I let a day pass without doing some- 
thing in the line of acquiring something though small 
or great, I am not quite content with the day. 

Leavenworth at that time was the starting point for 
emigrant trains crossing the great plains, and we fre- 
quently saw those queer vehicles called prairie 
schooners. In fact there were many new and strange 
things of interest to children. But mother took no 
notice of anything and we could not arouse her out of 
her apathy. 

One evening while we were sitting under the big 
tree by the door Seth said to me, " come little sister, 



Our Trial 



253 



sing one of those songs you used to sing and gladden 
my heart," and I tried to Hft up my voice in song but 
my voice refused to comply, and from that time on I 
could never sing. 



CHAPTER XXII 

BACK TO THE OLD HOME 

So in the late autumn of 1866 just one year from 
the time we had left the dear old home we were to 
return. Our friends and relatives had sent us some 
money ; father got some back pay from the government, 
and he sold the chickens, cow and sweet potatoes and 
got money enough together to defray the expense of 
the journey. 

Mother and father had gone to City Point and 
washed and packed the bedding; mother giving a 
negro woinan a feather bed and pair of pillows for 
helping get the things ready for the northward jour- 
ney. Then mother and Seth went to Greenwood 
cemetery so mother could see where her children were 
resting. She not being able to go there before and 
father not strong enough for the walk. There were 
no vehicles other than heavy ox wagons, and going on 
foot was by far the easier way. I often think how 
weary she must have grown on the return ; how long 
the way must have seemed to her, how heavy her feet ; 
for she was leaving so much there that was dear to 
her, and still she shed no tear, and we began to think 
she would never weep again. 

When all was ready we took a boat at the levee 
and started on the return trip. 

254 



Back to the Old Home 255 

We had been "A Httle journey in the great world," 
and Hke many another pilgrim were returning footsore 
and weary from the toilsome and dangerous way. 

Oh, if poor people could only know when they are 
well off, and when they have a home stay there and 
not wander. It is well enough for the rich to journey, 
but from a sad and bitter experience I can truly say: 
the poor should stay at home. 

'' A contented mind is a continual feast," and the 
poor at home can have much that goes to make life 
beautiful. Nothing can satisfy the human heart but 
human love, and in the simplest cottage one can have 
the deepest, truest love of which the human heart is 
capable of and the great world cares nothing for the 
flotsam and jetsam cast adrift on the sea of humanity. 

If one have the spirit of the living God within, and 
true abiding human love, they certainly have all the 
human heart can hope for. Earthly riches count for 
so little in the end, but love is the greatest thing in 
the world. 

We quietly took our seats in the saloon of the great 
steamer, not caring to even look around. We were 
too sick and feeble, and rest was all we craved. We 
could not help seeing the thousand of wild geese on 
the sand shoals of old Missouri, and perhaps we would 
never see those scenes again, and we never have. 

We took the train at Atchison and ran to St. Joseph, 
and from there on to Hannibal, and again crossed the 
Mississippi not caring for anything only that we were 
on the way north, and back to the old home. While 
crossing the prairies of Illinois we saw immense or- 



*l^6 Fortune's Wheel 

chards of apples, but the train ran swiftly and we 
only occasionally saw things of interest. We were 
too sick and feeble to take much notice. -We entered 
Chicago in the evening and thought the gas lights 
very pretty as they ran together away off at the ex- 
treme end of the point of sight. 

The next morning father found one of the Northern 
Transportation boats in discharging her cargo, and 
it would take three days to be ready for the return trip, 
and the captain, after hearing father's story, let us go 
on board to save hotel bills. 

I was approaching my twelfth year, and was at the 
age when children should know neither sorrow nor 
care. But I had been through things which from that 
time on, were to leave such an impression on mind 
and heart that my whole future life would be influenced 
thereby. I was to have no further childhood, no 
joyous girlhood, no happy young womanhood, and 
pleasure such as comes to the favored ones of earth, 
should have no place in my life. But from this time 
on I was to be a queer, strange woman, a thinker and 
thinking was to carve out my future destiny, which 
will not be written by me in this narrative. It may 
come at some future time but under an entirely 
different form, for it has no part in this. 

So we were three days waiting, and while running 
around in the freight depot we found a crate of 
chickens and a large coffee mill. I should think the 
hopper would have held two quarts. It is strange that 
I should see that mill there and then see it again a year 
later and in such a different place, and that I should 



Back to the Old Home 257 

turn the crank many a time and grind corn for our 
bread in that queer mill. Oh, what strange things 
come to us in life, and God only knows why. 

The agent told us the chickens and mill and other 
goods in the same lot belonged to a man who would 
come on board at Milwaukee. The goods had been 
purchased in Chicago and were billed to G. H. 

The man who owned the goods did come on board 
at Milwaukee, a tall, lank, unkempt man. He had been 
a soldier too, and had many yarns to spin. Among 
other things he told father of the land which had been 
opened to settlement under the homestead law. How 
he and his sons had preempted land there and he had 
been to Chicago to purchase goods, and was now on 
his way to the new land where he expected to make 
a fortune in a short time. 

He said the timber was fine, and a man in father's 
circumstances could, in a short time, carve out a for- 
tune for himself. 

We had our tickets to Ogdensburgh, and mother 
would not listen to stopping. But the man left the 
boat at G. H. and we continued on our journey. 

I wish we had never seen this man, our destiny 
would have been such a different thing. But if it 
be true, that there is a divinity that shapes our ends, 
then we were to meet the man and our future in- 
fluenced by him. I shall have to stop here and let the 
tears cease to flow, for my heart is sad and heavy, the 
tears come unbidden and course down my cheeks like 
rain. I think of my blighted life, my joyless life, my 
life without hope, for through the influence of this 



258 Fortune's Wheel 

man I was made a prisoner for twenty-five long years 
in the most desolate place that could be found to bind 
a human soul in. 

We journeyed alone the rest of the way, and mother 
lay on the little berth dry-eyed and listless. Nothing 
seemed to arouse her. Her interest in life seemed 
gone. We came to the Welland canal on Sunday and 
lay there until midnight, then began the descent. We 
did not see many things of interest on the return 
journey, and finally in good time reached Ogdens- 
burgh, and who should be there but Uncle William 
and one of his sons. He had purchased a small boat 
and was engaged in traffic on the St. Lawrence, and 
was going home in the morning and we were to go 
with him. 

We were all excitement that night and could not 
sleep, and were ready in the morning when his boat 
came alongside to get on board, and the last few miles 
of the toilsome journey began. 

We were charmed with this part of the journey, 
for it was on a' part of the beautiful river we had 
known all our lives. The water looked so limpid and 
rippled, and murmured a song as though welcoming 
us home, and old Missouri seemed a mud stream as 
we looked over the side of the boat, and into the cool 
depths, and on the placid surface of the mighty river. 

We went through the Lachine rapids, and as we 
rose and fell on the swell of the waters we thought the 
St. Lawrence the finest stream in all the world. But 
more glad were we to shoot the rapids *' De Plaw," 
and round the island, and there was the dear village 



Back to the Old Home 



259 



we had "known always lying so quiet and peaceful 
waiting with outstretched arms to receive us. 

Although our friends and neighbors knew we were 
coming they did not know what day we would arrive, 
and there was no one to meet us when we touched at 
the little wharf that night. 

Puss ran on, and I in my feebleness tried to keep up 
but was too tired and sat down on the '' big stone " to 
rest. The big stone was a very large one that had been 
by our fence all my life, and we used it as a play 
place. Mother soon came there too, leaning on father's 
arm, then she sank down, and the fountain of her tears 
was broken and she wept and we all wept together, 
relatives, who came running to meet us, friends and 
neighbors too. 

Oh, what a home coming! we, who had started out 
such a short year before, all hope and anticipation 
of good fortune to come, had returned a broken 
remnant, and all our hopes shattered, and what 
property we had had in money and goods all gone 
entirely, nothing left but the house and there it stood 
right beside us empty waiting for us to enter and 
occupy, the family having moved when they knew we 
were to return. 

Some one secured a stove and set it up, and our 
baggage was brought in and once more we were in 
the dear old home. But, oh, how changed ; the fur- 
nishings were all gone and the dear children were not 
all there, and the eldest son, on whom mother had de- 
pended, would never return, and ever3lhing was 
changed. 



26o Fortune's Wheel 

Mother wept now all the time, but we felt better to 
see her weep. 

The neighbor whose lot joined ours,, and whose 
family were all boys, had had a heart trial too that 
summer. Her two eldest sons joined a military band 
and went to Montreal on an excursion to play, and 
while there were exposed to smallpox, and in a few 
weeks were both dead. And the lady who had been 
so exclusive before came to mother now and fell on 
her neck and mingled her tears with those that flowed 
from mother's eyes now all the time. 

We were all sick and had ague, some one of us 
nearly all the time, and we had medicine enough to 
start a small apothecary shop, but the ague did not 
leave us and we had it off and on for two years. 

When aunt heard that we had returned she came 
immediately to mother. I think I must have been her 
favorite for she always wanted me to live with her 
and now she was determined to take me home. I, of 
course, not wanting to go at all. I was very ill and 
had neuralgia in' my face at the time of her coming 
and could scarcely sit up, besides having ague every 
few days and my system was weakened from effects 
of cholera. But she insisted and mother thought I 
had better go. Uncle and his two sons were at home, 
and aunt had two children, the youngest just the age of 
my sister's child, and I thought the living one would 
in a measure take the place of the dead one. And 
aunt kept a girl to do the work and there would be 
nothing to do but rest and get well. So I was over per- 
suaded, and the next day was on the stage going home 



Back to the Old Home a6i 

with her. It was only eleven miles straight across the 
country to her house, but she had no horse and had 
come by stage and train. The first stage was seven 
miles, and there was a lady in who had had a cancer 
removed, and she took up the whole time telling about 
the operation and her wonderful recovery. I sat and 
watched her during the recital and wondered how any 
one could make such a long story out of one trouble. 
It seemed a small thing to me at that time. 

We went the eight miles by train, then sat in the 
depot waiting for the next stage, and the agent came 
in to book us. He stood and looked at me — and such 
a woe begone-looking little girl I was — my face tied 
up in flannels and all covered with a white napkin, 
and he passed on and did not try to collect fare from 
me. 

When we arrived at aunt's house, the handsome 
young man, now a law student, came running out to 
meet us, and he kissed my aunt, then stooped and 
kissed me for the first and last time. 

Everything seemed quite natural. My uncle kind 
and genial as of yore. I was in bed a few days, then 
began to get better. 

One day, not more than ten days after my arrival, 
aunt had company, and the girl had been told to build 
the kitchen fire and get the tea. When the fire was 
lighted she came to me and said " You will have to 
build the fire to-morrow evening." I looked at her 
in astonishment and asked what she meant. Then 
she told me that after the tea things were put away 
she was to go. I was better and could help with the 



262 Fortune's Wheel 

work. I was discouraged and knew I could never do 
much work and get well. But that night she went and 
I began work next morning just as I had done before, 
only I was older and more was expected of me. 

My hands cramped when put in water too hot or 
cold, and I had all the dishes to do and vegetables to 
get ready, sweeping and dusting to do and the small 
things to iron, and then between times she set me to 
knitting and my hands cramped and I was dis- 
heartened. Then she thought of another scheme to 
make me earn my bread and butter. She had been 
sewing carpet rags for years, or I had for her, and 
now she decided to get that carpet ready and have 
it woven.. In that day the warp was not purchased 
prepared and it had to be doubled and twisted at 
home. So she bought the fine cotton thread and set 
me to doubling and twisting. First I wound it into 
balls then put the balls in water, just a little in two 
pans on the floor to moisten the thread and make it 
twist good, then get out the big wheel and walk back- 
ward and forward by the hour. Of course my hands 
cramped and I would have ague every few days, but 
my aunt was inexorable, double and twist I must. 
Sometimes she would put the children to bed in the 
evening, and the young men would be gone, and she 
and uncle would go out to visit some friend and leave 
me to double and twist. I would walk backward and 
forward, my body casting such queer shadows on the 
wall, and I had heard so many ghost stories in my day, 
and the big wheel would buzz so loudly that finally I 
would get frightened and set it away and creep into 



Back to the Old Home 0.6^ 

bed with the children, and listen and tremble until she 
would return. 

It was during my stay, this last time, that I had 
cause to remember the young man aunt disliked. He 
stayed at home nearly all the time during the day, 
and finally she scolded him and asked him why he did 
not get to work instead of sitting there doing nothing, 
and living off his father, and he replied, '' I am sitting 
here to see that you do not work Patty to death." I 
had never thought that he cared. The handsome young 
man would sit there behind a book and never look at 
me, and I surely think if aunt had worked me to death 
he would never have known it. 

I went to school one day and was sent home with 
ague and that ended it. 

Christmas came and the church gave a tree, and 
we all took a part in giving and receiving. My aunt 
gave me, among other things, a black felt hat trimmed 
with blue ribbons, and I Hked it. It was the prettiest 
hat I had ever had. I think I wore it once. 

After New Year's father and mother went there to 
visit for a couple of weeks and sent me home to stay 
with Puss and Seth. When the visit was over aunt 
came with them to take me back, but I would not go. 
I had had enough of living with her. And she to spite 
me took away from me all the things she had given me, 
the pretty hat and all. I did not care for hats ; I would 
not go back. 

Mother had lost her convincing way and said if 
I did not want to go I need not. So I never went back. 

I met this aunt in after years when I was occupying 



264 Fortune's Wheel 

an honored position, and had succeeded in carving out 
something of a name for myself and she said, if I had 
remained with her and attended school I could have 
been quite a clever woman. I had the grace to say no 
word in return, but thought, yes, I should have known 
all the hard work anyone needed to become a thorough 
drudge. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

CLOSING SCENES 

It is with a good deal of reluctance that I approach 
this last chapter of my narrative, for it was by far the 
happiest period of my life, and when I close it will feel 
that I have parted with much that can never be wholly 
my own again. But if my experience can be of any 
help to others they are welcome to share with me. 

We were all home the rest of that winter, and our 
family seemed so small now; the two little children, 
Seth, Puss and I completed the number. 

Mother's health was so broken she lay day after 
day on a bed in her old room, and seemed to take very 
little interest in things around her. Seth and Puss 
went to school and I lay on a lounge by the kitchen fire 
resting and trying to get well. Occasionally a day 
would come when ague would rack my frame, then 
father would hold my head and care for me through 
the fever, and when I was better fix me something 
nice to eat. 

The wife of the Scotch tailor would come in with 
her work and sit by our fire and talk to father. Mother 
on her bed, and I on my lounge patient listeners. 
Father told all the life in the south, and when that was 
worn out he told of the war. Every hardship he told 

265 



a66 Fortune's Wheel 

seemed real to me. I had seen the south and knew 
its peculiarity too. I had seen enough of it in my 
brief sojourn of one year to last a lifetime. But we 
had treasures there, and one spot under that southern 
sun was sacred to us, for our loved ones were sleeping 
just as sweetly there as they could have done 'under 
northern skies. And while life should last we would 
yearn with intense longing over one little spot in that 
far-off distant clime. 

Every one was kind. Mother had completely lost 
her old domineering way, and if we could live and get 
strong she did not care what we did to make noise and 
litter. We had suffered so much that everyone was 
full of sympathy for us, and came to see and bring us 
things to tempt our appetite, and altogether we found 
that there was a great heart of love in the bosom of 
the world. 

We had two new members in our family not many 
m.onths after our return, and they deserve special no- 
tice. Two years before a woman had come to our 
house just at night, and asked mother to keep her till 
morning. Mother kept her, and she did not go away 
the next morning, nor for many months after. For 
the next morning there were two souls, that had come 
to stay, instead of one, and she could not get away. 
She was a Canadian girl who had no parents, but had 
been bound to service when a mere child, and had 
worked always and knew every kind of work that was 
done on the Dutch farms and in the Dutch kitchens 
such as she had been brought up in. She was a little 
woman, and when she recovered her health she would 



Closing Scenes 267 

roll up her sleeves and fly around and scrub, 
wash, cook, iron, bake, scour and burnish, and 
when it was done everything was as shining and 
bright as hands could make them. When we went 
to Missouri she would gladly have gone, only she did 
not have the money for the journey and we could not 
afford to pay for her and did not need her service any 
way. She found a home for herself and child on a 
farm several miles from the village, and was doing as 
well as a woman can who has suffered in youth as she 
had done. But now when she heard that we had re- 
turned she came and offered her services to mother, 
who had rendered her the greatest service one woman 
can render another. Her child was now two years old, 
a bright, rosy-cheeked boy. We were happy to have 
her, and she was with us the whole year and took no 
pay other than the food she and her child ate. Our 
work was never done better, and all we had to do after 
she came was to rest and get well. 

When spring put in his appearance I grew stronger, 
and began to walk out a good deal and when school 
opened was to go, and when the time came there was 
Peter Richmond in the master's place, and for one 
brief summer I was to go to school and feel a rest in 
going. 

Schools have changed so much since my young day, 
and children of to-day can scarcely appreciate their 
privileges, and waste much precious time in teasing 
and annoying their teachers. In my young day the 
teacher had the whole sway and the pupil did not dare 
say a word in return for any amount of abuse. Oc- 



268 Fortune's Wheel 

casionally some bold young man would retaliate, not 
often though. 

As a small child, I had listened to the large girls in 
the grammar class conjugating verbs, and wondered 
why they would say to such men as Dondle and Lyons 
I love, you love, he loves, not knowing of course what 
it all meant. But it seemed so different now to hear 
these large girls reciting to Peter Richmond, he look- 
ing like a young Apollo and they repeating, I love, you 
love, he loves. In after years I was to know what it 
all meant, but not then. 

During that summer I got a taste for knowledge that 
was to lead me into the way of getting some education, 
where such a thing as education was but little known 
and not at all appreciated. 

Early in the summer father went west to hunt up 
the man whom we had met on the boat, and to explore 
the land flowing with milk and honey he had told us 
of. Our experience had been such that father decided 
to go himself and see, and if things were as repre- 
sented, in the autumn he would return for us. He 
took Seth with him, but in a short time he returned and 
advised mother to never go there, saying the country 
might be healthy, but the whole county where father 
had secured land was not worth our old home. But 
Seth was only a boy, and his council was not heeded. 
What did a boy know about such matters? In that 
day no one ever thought of taking advice from a boy. 
Men and women planned and executed, and children 
obeyed. Things are reversed nowadays, and children 
have a voice in domestic affairs too. 



Closing Scenes 269 

So we had Seth home all that summer, and father 
stayed in the new country and worked at his trade, 
that of cooper. 

Everything seemed so nice to me that summer, for 
we could do anything we wanted to. If we got well 
and strong mother did not care. I could go to any 
church I pleased, and so I went to the Episcopal, and 
sat in the sacred precincts of that edifice a devout wor- 
shiper. I had been from church so long I could ap- 
preciate the privilege of sitting there so peaceful 
and quiet, and everything seemed so restful to 
me. The light falling softly on us from the stained 
windows, the notes of the organ, the responsive read- 
ing and after it the sermon, then the Sunday school, 
all left such an impression on my mind that in after 
years it was to help lead me into a higher life. 

I went to the Httle grave yard Sunday afternoons 
in company with others, not daring to go alone, and 
walked around among the graves and read the inscrip- 
tions on the stones. I was more interested in such 
places now, and thought of the dear children lying in 
Greenwood cemetery in far-off Missouri, and not a 
stone to mark their last resting place. But God has a 
record, and they cannot be lost, was a comforting 
thought to me. Sometimes we strolled to the island 
and wandered over the beautifully kept grounds, or sat 
on the bank and watched the steamers shoot the rapids, 
and sometimes Seth would take us to Canada for a 
day, on Saturday, or row us down to some island and 
there spend some happy hours. We got more books to 
read that summer than we had ever had before, 



27O Fortune's Wheel 

and I would lie on the bed and read to my heart's 
content. 

Seth was up to his old tricks too. I remember how 
the little children were sitting on the floor, looking at 
some old Harpers' Weeklies filled with war scenes, 
and they were very happy in trying to solve the why 
and wherefore of the pictures, when the hall door 
opened and the most terrible creature they had ever 
seen poked its head out of the door and looked at 
them. We heard them screaming and ran to their 
relief, and found that Seth had got possession of a 
false face, and seeing them there alone thought to 
frighten them just a Httle. But they were frightened 
more than a little, and it took our united efforts to quiet 
them. They would not touch the mask, and screamed 
every time we tried to get them to examine it. Of 
course this was long ago, and children were not used 
to seeing all kinds of things as they are now. 

How cool and sweet the air seemed to us after the 
fierce heat of the south, and we would play on the 
grass in front of our house till long after dark. We 
had plenty of companions, children then, as now, en- 
joyed playing out of doors on a summer's evening. 

We sought out new haunts and went over all the 
old ones, and enjoyed everything, for there was no 
fear of coming home and being whipped now. No 
child had been whipped in our family since the awful 
calamity had come which swept off so many, and 
mother now only wished to see us well and happy. 

Granny Pidgeon came one day and told mother's 



Closing Scenes 271 

fortune, and I heard her tell mother that there would 
be another child in our family some day, and that it 
would be a boy, and that father was not two days' jour- 
ney from home. We knew he was a week's journey 
from home, and thought Granny did not know, but 
the very next day he came, and that part of the fortune 
came true. He was very enthusiastic over the new 
country he had found, and would sit and tell us of all 
we could have and do when we got there. We were 
to have maple sugar in cakes, and some would be kept 
soft so we could spread it on our bread, and we were 
so fond of maple sugar that it was a great inducement 
to us, and we could gather nuts too, for there were 
many trees. In fact we could do anything we pleased 
when we got there. 

Poor father; his was a hopeful nature and was 
doomed to bitter disappointment, as all or many hope- 
ful natures are. It is a comfort to my heart to remem- 
ber him as a cheerful, hopeful man, and while many 
other hopes fell to the ground, his last hope, the hope 
of eternal life, was like a strong anchor to his soul, 
and I know that never failed him ; and when he closed 
his eyes on earthly things forever, he opened them on a 
beautiful vision of never-fading beauty where the sun- 
light of God's face can never grow dim. 

We began our preparations to go. First father and 
mother decided to leave Puss. She was nearly fifteen 
years old, and it was necessary for her to be in school 
for some time to come, and so they decided to send her 
to father's sister for two years at least, and then she 



272 Fortune's Wheel 

could go west, too. Second, the old home was to be 
sold, and the money used toward building up a new 
home in the west. 

Mother's brother and friends advised her to not sell 
the place, but stay where they were and then the chil- 
dren could get some schooling at least, for father said 
the country where we were going was new and the 
school had not come. But mother instead of listening 
to advice found a purchaser and sold the dear old 
home, and kept on preparing things for the journey. 

One morning Puss and I lay awake in the parlor 
bedroom talking over the separation which was coming 
to us so soon, and we heard the wailing of an infant, 
and we wondered whose it could be. But as the cry- 
ing continued we got up, dressed as quickly as possible 
and going to the door of mother's room, found that 
another thing in Granny Pidgeon's fortune telling had 
come true, for there was the child and a boy too. He 
is living still, the only son left in our family, and quite 
a man, having been born in 1867, a little more than a 
year after the loss of the dear ones in old Missouri. 
And now as soon as mother was strong enough to 
travel we were to go. 

We did not feel so enthusiastic over this trip, for we 
were to retrace our steps, and had been over the route 
twice already, and thought very little of the journey. 

We were sorry to leave the dear old home forever; 
for from past experience we had begun to realize that 
now that the old home was gone, there would be noth- 
ing to return to, and we probably would never see it 
again, and we never have. 



Closing Scenes 273 

So when the arrangements were all completed and 
mother was well enough to start, we packed our scant 
stock of goods and made the farewell visits to friends 
and relatives. We children had gone over the old 
haunts for the last time, and it was with a deep feeling 
of anxiety and dread that I was leaving the home of 
my childhood this time, for it was to a new country 
we were setting our faces, and who knew how things 
would be in our future, none but God. He held the 
key of our destiny. But we were too young to realize 
all that might mean. Years would unfold it though, 
and when we were older, we would know how much 
was lost out of our life by this our last move. 

I sat in the dear church for the last time, and listened 
to its bell and thought of its cheery notes for years and 
years after where no church bell greeted my sense of 
hearing. I bade farewell to schoolmates and the dear 
master whose gentle influence had lifted me toward 
the higher life, little dreaming I would never be a 
scholar in a school again. But there was to be a way 
for me to receive some knowledge, even though schools 
were denied me. We visited the orchard for the last 
time and lingered in the shade of the trees laden with 
their burden of fruit, taking some of the choicest ones 
as a remembrance of joyful days spent and gone never 
to return to us. We had played in the orchard more 
than any other place, and it was years before we saw 
apples growing on trees again. 

The garden gate clicked behind us, and we de- 
scended the, path to the river and took the steamer 
one day late in September, and retraced our steps. 



274 Fortune's Wheel 

At Ogdensburgh Puss took the train for a distant 
part of the state, and our woman of all work, who had 
been with us thus far, bade us good-bye forever and 
returned to her child. 

I do not know how it has been with her since, but 
the boy succeeded in getting an education, and the last 
I heard from him he was the leading druggist in his 
town. 

While walking around Ogdensburgh we were ac- 
costed by a boy on a corner, who shouted to father and 
asked him who his tailor was. I had never noticed 
anything wrong with father's clothes, but my attention 
being drawn to it now, I looked at him and he was 
not dressed as other men were on the street. His 
coat was cut in the style called swallow-tail, and his 
trousers were fastened in front with a flap that but- 
toned on to the waistband, a style fashionable a cen- 
tury ago. He was accustomed to that style in his 
youth, and never changed. Fashions had no place in 
his life, and he clung to the old, not caring for the 
new. It was just as well. Where he is now the cut 
of a man's coat counts for nothing. 

A week later we touched at a dock where the North- 
ern Transportation steamers stopped to wood, and 
were told that our journey was at an end and we ac- 
cordingly disembarked. This was the same place 
where the man had left the boat a year before at G. H. 

I can look back now and see mother sitting on that 
dock on an old red chest brought from our lintern, 
she holding her infant in her arms and weeping bit- 



Closing Scenes 275 

terly. But why did she weep? I will paint the pic- 
ture which presented itself if I can. 

The dock extended out into Lake Michigan, and far 
away over the water could be seen two islands, so far 
away that on a foggy day they were invisible. The 
water was placid and blue, but the wind could lash it 
into a fury any time when it started on its mad pranks. 
Away to the south could be seen a mountain of sand 
which had been accumulating for centuries, and it had 
buried and completely hidden from view some of 
the monarchs of the primeval forest, and at intervals 
the tops of others could be seen still showing through 
the drifting sand. In the foreground a dreary waste 
of this same shifting sand, washed by the waves until 
it was bleached to a perfect state of purity. There 
was no town, no bustle of life, nothing but silence and 
solitude, and for a background the primeval forest 
stretching away over those eastern hills, and for miles 
and miles it formed an almost unbroken wilderness, 
and our home was to be there, twenty-five miles away 
back from even this dreary waste of sand, where a 
touch of life was brought occasionally by the steamer 
coming in to load, and before my star of hope sinks 
behind those distant eastern hills, and while the tears 
are still wet on mother's cheeks, cheeks that have 
known the bitterest tears, I will kindly draw the cur- 
tain and bid you a cheerful, tender farewell, for we 
have reached the golden land of promise, the land 
flowing with milk and honey. So farewell. 




